Runaways Remix: Pride and Joy
by Cmdr. Gen. Marasco
Summary: AU This is the first story arc, with an added Character and some changes to the continum. Finally restarted
1. Issue 1, or How It All Started

Runaways Remix: Pride and Joy

Runaways Remix: Pride and Joy

Issue One

There are an infinite number of universes, each parallel to the one we inhabit. Most are exactly the same, with some smaller differences. This is one of them.

Everyone is quite familiar with the events leading up, including, and following the original Runaways (Wilder, Minoru, Stein, Yorkes, Dean and Hayes) discovery of the Pride. Well, those same events also happened in an alternate universe, about 1 light-degree off of the one we know. Everything in that one is pretty much the same there, with one small exception, the sun of Glen and Melinda Hunter…

The Hunter Residence

6:53 P.M

"Jake, we need to go now!" Jake Hunter heard his dad yell through his door. He quickly dropped the book he had picked up while getting ready. "I'm almost done!" he yelled back through the door.

"What's taking you so long? Were already late for the Wilders' meeting!"

"I'm looking for my Star Wars tie!" Jake rummaged around, looking for his tie.

"Oh, honey, I put it in the wash." His mom called from outside.

"What! Lame!" he cried. "Well, I guess I could wear my Rebellion bling…" he muttered. "Where is it anyway?" He yelled outside. He heard his dad sigh. "Well, at least he's going to wear something better than last year." He said.

The Wilder Residence

7:25 P.M

The car ride to the Wilder's was uneventful, with the exception of Jake's dad putting the car to the red line to get to the meeting on time. Jake swore the car went faster than normal, but he didn't really care. He had bigger things to worry about. When they got there, most of the group was already assembled. Chase Stein was sitting by the stairs to the top floor. He nodded to Jake as he came in. The rest of the group was milling about. Jake spotted Molly, Gert and Karolina, but not Nico. "Must be late." He thought. He quickly moved when Mrs. Wilder came behind him. He noticed a table of snacks, and went to help himself. He heard Mrs. Wilder call for Alex, and the sound of feet on steps as Alex came down from his room. Jake looked over his shoulder, more interested in loading up a handful of fish crackers with fake cheese than anything else. He heard Chase greet Alex, and noted the lack of enthusiasm in Alex's voice. He raised his hand in greeting, his mouth now stuffed with snacks. There was a knock at the door, and the Minoru's finally showed up. Nico's dad came in first, lugging some bags. "Sorry were late all!" he said. "Big pileup on Cliffside." His wife muttered something Jake couldn't hear, then moved off to greet some of the other parents. He heard Alex mutter "Holy…" and turned away from his fake cheese.

What he saw made him almost choke.

He'd known Nico was hot, but now… Jake couldn't even describe it. "From the looks of it, I'm not the only one checking her out." He thought to himself, noticing Alex's reaction.

"Agreed." Said the voice in the back of his mind. Jake often talked to himself like this. Having no real friends except for the group, he kept himself company this way. The back of his neck tingled, and he brushed dull blond strands of hair away from the nickel-sized birthmark that sat at the base of his skull. He scratched at it, then stretched. He continued to watch the conversation between Nico and Alex. Nico mentioned something about some DVD's that Alex had lent her last year, and Alex just sputtered. Jake grinned at his friend's discomfort. "It's only gonna get worse Wilder" he thought with an evil smile. Behind him he heard Chase talking with Karolina, who seemed disinterested. She broke of the conversation with a cry of "Nico!" and ran to meet her friend. She complemented Nico on her outfit, calling it "hot" (although Jake thought she might actually be referring to Nico) and asked where she got it. Nico said she made it herself.

"Nice." Jake thought. "She's almost like…"

Don't got down there, said the voice in his head. Old memories are better left alone. He sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. He thought about Karolina instead. Gert Yorkes walked up to him and grunted. "Hormones. Yuck." She said, noticing Alex's reaction.

"Got that right Yorkes." Jake commented, filling his mouth with more fake cheese. He offered her some, but she declined. He shrugged, and stuffed it in his mouth. Molly Hayes came up to them, looking incredibly cute in her hat. She turned to Gert. "Can I talk to you about girl stuff?" she asked.

"Under no circumstances." Gert replied monotone. Jake laughed, spraying fake cheese into the air.

"What's so funny?" asked Gert in the same monotone voice. Jake laughed even harder. He managed to gasp for air, then caught his breath. He smiled. "It's just how you said that." he said. "Your all monotone and whatnot. Way funny." He grinned like a maniac. Molly came up to him. "Hey, I'm the one who made her say it!" she said angrily, crossing her arms. "How come I don't get credit?"

"Believe me kid, it's better to not have credit for stuff like this." Jake said, giving her a noogie. She giggled. Alex's dad cleared his throat. "Well, now that we're all here, I believe the adults will be retiring to the library for a few hours." He said. Alex motioned for the rest of the kids to follow him, and Jake joined in, stopping for a second to grab a thing of fake cheese. Then he jogged to catch up to the group.

The Game Room

8:46 P.M

About an hour and a half later, the teens had fallen into silence, and Jake finally ran out of fake cheese. He threw the empty can into the garbage (Chase whistling at his accuracy) and began stuffing his face with chips. Nico yawned. "What she said." Said Gert. Jake snorted. Alex sighed. "Listen, I know we'd all rather be somewhere else right now," he said, leaning forward "But we're stuck here for at least another hour, so we might as well try to amuse ourselves."

"Got that right." Jake muttered to himself. He shook his container to see if there was any more fake cheese. There wasn't.

"So what's the plan, man?" Karolina asked, legs uncrossing.

"We could play video games…" Jake suggested. There was a pause. "Nah!" he said. Behind him Jake heard Chase whispering something that sounded like "Please be beer…" over and over again. Molly giggled.

"Sorry to say Chase," Jake said, turning on the couch "But the likelihood of the Wilder's leaving a group of teens and an 11-year-old with anything even closely alcoholic are about the same as Karolina's parents eating meat."

"Now that's an idea!" Alex sat up quickly. "Let's go spy on our 'rents."

"How?" Nico asked. "Our parents lock themselves in your library for, uh, whatever they do."

"Yeah, well my dad's like, totally obsessed with surveillance and he put all these secret passageways into the house to keep an eye on stuff."

"Gross." Gert said. Jake stuck out his tongue.

"Bletch." He said.

"He's not a Peeping Tom or anything," Alex said, moving over to the wall next to one of the arcade games. "He's just, like, paranoid around his security." He moved to the back of the machine and fiddled with it. A section of wall sprang back, revealing a dark passage. "My dad doesn't know that I know, but I found this a couple months ago when I was looking for Christmas presents."

"And you think it will be fun to watch our parents argue over if something is deductible?" Gert asked.

"Haven't you ever wondered what their like when we're not around?" Nico added.

"I don't know really." Karolina said quietly. She looked back at Jake, who was still on the couch. "You in Jake?" She asked. Jake thought for a second. "Sure." He said. "Right behind you." He got up off the couch. Chase reached into his jacked and pulled out a liquor bottle. "You guys sure you don't want to play spin the bottle?" He asked with an eyebrow raise. Jake looked the other teens, who all blinked. "Huh?" said Molly.  
"Okay, lame secret passage way it is!" Gert said, pointing towards it.

"Let's go." Jake said, striding towards the passage.

The Corridors

9:15 P.M

"This is like the Haunted Mansion at Disney… only boringer." Jake heard Molly say up ahead.

"It's not that bad." He said, looking around. "What do you think Karolina?" he asked.

"Its Okay, but it's a bit on the dark side. I can't see anything." Karolina replied. Jake looked around, then cursed as his leg hit something.

"Ouch!" came Molly's voice.

"Sorry!" he said quickly.

"Keep it down you two." Alex said from up ahead. "I'm pretty sure these walls are soundproof, but I want to be on the safe side."

"What about these windows?" Chase asked, pointing at one they where passing. "Won't they be able to see us?"

"They aren't windows Chase." Alex replied. "They're one-way mirrors."

"Let's hope they are." Jake muttered to himself.

"Hey Jake, I got a bad feeling about this." Karolina muttered.

"I don't like it either." Jake said. Up ahead, he heard Alex and Nico whispering to each other.

"Hey, I think we're getting close to the library, so-" Alex stopped mid-sentence. "What the…?" He said, looking into a pane of one-way glass. The rest of the group formed around him. Jake heard sounds coming from within. He jammed himself between Molly and Chase and rested his arms on Nico's shoulders. All their parents where there, alright, but it wasn't what Jake had imagined. Their parents sat around a table, wearing costumes. Jake saw his own parents sitting between Chase's parents and Nico's, wearing what looked like Halo Spartan-II armor, minus the helmets. Alex's dad was saying something, and Jake caught the tail end of it.

"…I suggest we move on to the Pride's final order of business." Jake heard him say.

"What the hell is going on?" Jake thought.

"Is…is that my mom and dad?" Karolina asked.

"Looks like it. Why are they wearing wet suits though?" Jake asked.

"The Pride?" Gert muttered behind Jake.

"Check out those costumes." Nico muttered.

"Wait, you thinking what I'm thinking?" Alex asked, turning to the group.

"Yeah, our parents are totally gay." Chase said. Jake heard Karolina turn to look at Chase. He could just imagine the look she was giving him. He smiled to himself.

"No, I think they're super heroes." Alex said in awe. On the other side of the mirror, Alex's dad started speaking again. Jake couldn't hear what he said as Karolina had moved in front of him, and his face was pressing into her back. He didn't really mind though. "Think of all the guys at school who would kill to be in this position." He thought. He did manage to move up a little and look out. Outside the mirror, Alex's mom opened a door behind a bookcase. Inside stood a girl in the shortest pair of pants Jake had ever seen. Mr. Wilder led her out by her wrist.

"Whoa, who's the piece?" Chase asked, obviously turned on.

"Okay, this is starting to get way to much like _Eyes Wide Shut_…" Gert muttered.

"Uh, Karolina, you might want to take Molly back to the game room. Now." Alex whispered.

"Hey!" Molly yelled.

"Set it on mute Molly." Jake said.

"But I wanna-"

"Go." Alex said sternly.

"Come on Molly. Our parents are just faking it all. Let's go fix your hair."

"What's wrong with it?" Molly muttered, fiddling with a strand.

"I'll fill you in on anything that happens." Jake said to Karolina. She nodded. Jake raised himself up to take her place, putting his hand on Nico's shoulder to steady himself. Outside the mirror, Gert's dad said something. Jake caught a snippet of it, something about drugs and the Fourth Dimension.

"What the hell is the Fourth Dimension?" Jake wondered outloud.

"Did… Did he just say drugs?" Alex asked in amazement.

"Alex, what if they aren't good guys?" Nico asked.

"Well duh." Said Gert. "I've know out 'rents where evil since I was five."

"Speak for yourself." Chase added. "My parents are practically saints.

"I've got a bad feeling about this…" Jake said, adrenaline starting to roar in his veins.

"Relax everybody. We still don't know everything that's happening. Maybe she's, like, a runaway they rescued."

"Doesn't look like it." Jake said, pointing. Outside, something was wrong. Molly's parents seemed to be holding the girl in some form of telekinetic lock. "Hey, Molly's parents are, Jedi or something!" Jake said. Mr. Wilder turned to Chase's parents and quickly exchanged words. Then he nodded to Nico's dad, who started to say something in a weird language. Throughout the entire display, Jake's parents sat calmly, apparently doing nothing.

"I really don't like this…" Jake said. His hand unconsciously tightened on Nico's shoulder. Below him, Alex whispered to Nico. Jake didn't hear what he said. Outside, Nico's dad stopped saying something. Alex's dad moved towards the girl, pulling something out of his shirt as he did. He said something Jake didn't catch, then he lunged forward. Jake heard a distinctive "Shunk", and the girl went still, a look of surprise on her face. Alex's dad dropped her, and she fell to the floor, lifeless. Nico screamed. Instantly, everybody in the room turned towards the mirror.

"What was that?" asked Chase's mom.

"Oh shit." Jake thought.

End of Issue One


	2. Issue 2, or What The Heck Is That?

Runaways Remix: Pride and Joy

**A/N: Sorry it took so long, someone stole my reference. I got a new one though, so I'm back. To all my patient readers, here's Issue Two.**

**And to avatarfanatic280, yes, I do intend to redo the entire series(or at least most of it).**

**Disclaimer (which I forgot to do on my last issue): I don't own Runaways, (That honor belongs to Marvel) but I do own Jake**

Runaways Remix: Pride and Joy

Issue Two

The Wilder Residence

9:47 P.M.

"Oh Shit." Jake repeated. He stared unblinkingly at the blood dripping off the blade held by Alex's dad.

"Alex, what do we do?" Nico whispered franticly.

"Run." Alex responded, turning to fit the action.

"Took the words right out of my mouth there brother." Chase said dryly, grabbing Gert's arm and pulling her upright. Jake grabbed his arm and used it to haul himself up before setting off at a sprint towards the exit. Alex was the first through, followed by Nico, Jake, Chase and Gert in that order. Molly and Karolina (who had been unfolding a Twister mat) looked up in surprise. Alex quickly shut the passageway behind him. Next to him, Nico tried to catch her breath.

"What do we do now?" She asked, leaning against the wall for support.

"We need to find something that accounts for the last couple of minutes" Alex said, looking around quickly. His eyes fell on the Twister mat that Karolina and Molly had been setting up.

"Where'd you find that?" Alex asked.

"There's a bunch of old games under the TV." Molly said happily, completely oblivious to the fear and anxiety evident in her friends. Alex nodded, then turned to the rest of the group.

"Who's up for some Twister?" He asked, raising his eyebrow behind his glasses

"You're joking, right?" Chase asked, looking at the mat. "There is no way I'm playing that. You couldn't pay me enough." He shook his head and held his hands out in a "Halt" gesture for emphasis.

"If you have a better idea to explain what we've been doing for the recent past, I'm listening." Alex said quietly. Suddenly, the entire group went quiet. Far below the floor, the sound of a door opening reached their ears.

"Looks like we don't have a choice, Chase. Move!" Jake yelled, vaulting the couch in front of him and landing on the mat with a roll. Karolina whistled.

"Nice landing." She said. She joined him, followed by the rest of the group. When they were assembled, Jake looked around.

"Wait, where's Molly?" he said looking around. The he spotted her climbing over the back of the couch.

"What the-" Jake thought, but was cut short when, with a yell of joy, Molly leaped off the couch and onto the pile. Her added weight instantly collapsed it, forcing all the air out of Jake's lungs. Molly had lost her balance as well, and was struggling to get up, causing more groans from the group.

"Stop it!" He heard Karolina cry out as Chase's shoe came into contact with her head.

"Get off! You're hurting me!" Nico yelled at Gert, who had fallen on her when Molly jumped, and who's elbow was digging into her back. Outside, Jake heard Alex's mom calling through the door.

"Alex, what's going on in-" she was cut short as she came through the door and saw the group splayed on the floor.

"Oh, hey, mom." Alex said hopelessly.

"Is every thing alright up here?" His mom asked.

"Uh, yeah, totally. We were just fooling around with one of your old games." Alex said, attempting to get up. "And you think Vice City is dirty." Jake heard Alex add under his breath. "Why? Is everything alright with you?" Alex said, finally managed to stand up, causing Gert to fall and causing even more groans and grunts.

"Of course. It's just, we heard yelling and we were afraid…" she stopped. "Well, I'm glad you're all okay. Anyway, your parents and I are almost done with the last draft of the new fundraising chapter. We'll be up in a few." She started to head back down the stairs.

"Heh, no problem, Mrs. W." Chase said, smiling broadly. Nico, Gert and Alex (who were standing next to him) did the same. As soon as the door closed and Mrs. Wilder went back down the stairs, their smiles vanished and Chase exhaled massively. Gert followed suit. Nico turned to Alex worryingly.

"Do you think she bought it Alex?" she asked, going pale again.

"I don't know" Alex said, holding his stomach. "I…I think I'm going to puke though."

"Ditto." Jake said from the couch. He closed his eyes, shuddering.

"Okay, will someone please tell me what is going on? What did I miss down there?" Karolina asked, finally getting up off the floor.

"And why'd we stop Twistering? We just started!" Molly added from Karolina's left side. Jake coughed.

"Gert, take Molly to the bathroom or something." Alex said, scratching the back of his head.

"Why?" Gert asked. Alex leaned in close and whispered to her. Jake didn't catch it, but he could guess what his was talking about. About half a minute in, Molly interrupted.

"Um, helloooo. I know what you guys are whispering about…" she said, hands on her hips. Jake laughed quietly to himself at her look.

"You…you do?" Alex asked, plainly amazed and somewhat shocked.

"Duh. S…E…X. I'm not a baby." Molly said, drawing out her spelling. Jake burst out laughing at that, only to start again when Gert and Alex exchanged a look of simultaneous agreement. Gert said something to Molly, which Jake failed to hear over his own laughing. He stopped just in time to hear Molly answer "That's code for pee, right?"

Jake laughed so hard he fell off the couch, which only made him laugh harder. After Gert had left, Nico, Alex and Karolina moved over into the corner by Jake's couch.

"What the heck is going on you guys? You're scaring me. And why is Jake laughing some much?" Karolina asked, pointing at Jake, who was still laughing.

"Sorry." Jake said, managing to stop laughing. "I have this thing with stress. Whenever I freak out, I laugh a lot." He smiled, then hefted himself onto the couch. Beside him, Nico took Karolina's hand.

"Karolina, you…you better sit down." She said in a rather shaky voice. "I don't know how to tell you this but-"

"Alex's dad just killed some chick." Chase said from the couch next to Jake's, cutting her off.

"What?" Alex yelled back at Chase.

"Chase!" Nico followed.

"Huh?" Was all Karolina said. Jake just glared at Chase.

"It wasn't just my dad! It was all our parents! You saw!" Alex yelled at Chase, pointing simultaneously.

"We have no idea what we saw dude!" Chase retorted.

"They stabbed an innocent girl in the heart!" Alex yelled back.

"Stabbed?" Karolina asked quietly. She sat down heavily next to Jake, who took her hand in his own. She didn't seem to notice.

"Are you guys high? Are parents are super-villains!" Alex yelled at the group.

"Actually, I think he might be right, Karolina" Nico said, sitting down next to her and taking her other hand. Jake let go of the one he had.

"I was wondering when you guys were going to figure that out." Jake said to nobody in particular.

"You mean like, Doctor Doom?" Karolina asked quietly, still staring off into the distance.

"Yeah, only times twelve. They said they were part of something called "The Pride"." Alex said quietly, obviously thinking. "Whoever they are, we have to… to stop them." He said finally.

"How?" Chase asked. "You expect us to grab a few shotguns and go all Menendez brothers on them?"

"I'm good for that!" Jake cried, standing up quickly.

"Jake, we can't confront them, can we?" Nico said quietly. "How do we know they won't kill us?"

"We don't. But still-"

"Battle stations, Kiddies." Gert's voice came from the door, cutting Jake off. They all turned to see Gert and Molly standing in the doorway. "Something wicked this way comes." Gert quoted. Jake heard footsteps and a moment later the movie star face of Karolina's dad appeared around the door frame.

"Hey gang!" he said, sounding almost real. "Don't worry, the old-timers are finally packing it in for the night."

"Already?" Jake wondered out loud, getting up off the couch. The rest of the teens followed him to the door. Outside, Gert's dad was carrying a large, black and silver pad-locked chest with the help of Molly's dad.

"Gertrude, could I get some of you strapping male friends to give us a hand taking this out to the car?" he asked.

"I guess. What's in that thing?" Gert asked suspiciously.

"Oh, you know, just some antiques the Wilder's were nice enough to donate to our auction next month."

"Um, Nico and I can get that, Mr. Yorkes." Alex cut in from off to Jake's left.

"Yeah, uh, I may not be one of the boys, but playing tuba in the marching band has given me amazing upper-body strength." Nico added. Jake noticed that both of them were on edge.

"Since when did Nico play tuba?" Jake thought.

"Remember to lift with your knees, sweetie." Nico's mom said.

"Yes, we don't want anyone getting hurt tonight." Alex's dad added. Jake felt his skin crawl. Was that a veiled threat? Did they really know? He mentally shook his head and told himself to relax. He sat down on the couch and thought. Karolina came up to him and joined him.

"Jake, did this really happen? Did-" she whispered to him, the color draining from her face at the thoughts going through her head

"Yeah. I saw." Jake said, equally quiet.

"I mean, did they really, truly kill her? Maybe Mr. Wilder missed or something and-"

"That girl is dead, Karolina. I know it. You don't come back from a six-inch dagger to the heart. And even if that didn't kill her, the blood loss would have." His voice shook as he talked

"That's horrible! How can people do this kind of thing?"

"I don't know. I really don't." Jake said quietly, more to himself that Karolina. She reached out and held Jake's hand in hers.

"I scared." She said quietly, leaning in towards Jake. He kept starring at his shoes. The sound of foot steps broke the spell of silence that had fallen over them, and Alex came back into the room, followed by Nico, who was rubbing her arm.

"Why do all the antiques people want have to be so freaking heavy?" She asked the room. Jake shrugged.

"Cause most of the valued metals and minerals are exceedingly dense, which increases the weight, and most antiques use a lot, so it stands to reason that they would be heavy." He lectured. He crossed his arms and looked around the room. The rest of the teens were silent. Molly blinked.

"Okay, I didn't understand a word of that." she said.

"Neither did I, but we have more important things to worry about." Alex cut in. the group gathered around him.

"Listen, I need everybody's email address so I can set up a time to meet. Then we can figure out what to do next, or whatever." The rest of the group nodded at this suggestion, and gathered around to give their addresses. Then, when the exchanging was complete, they said their goodbyes to everyone, then split up and headed home. As Jake left, he noticed Karolina looking at him. He smiled and gave her a thumbs up. She returned both. Jake turned away and headed for the car.

Santa Monica Freeway

En route to the Hunter Residence

10:15 P.M.

Jake sat in the car, watching as the country went speeding by him. He sighed and closed his eyes.

"Jake, honey, you okay?" His mom asked from the passenger seat.

"Yeah, just tired. And I think I ate to much fake cheese."

"Well, you know what they say, Jake" his dad added. "To much of a cheesy thing is a bad thing."

"Dad!"

"All right, all right." His dad said with a smile. Jake leaned back and looked out his window. He tried to close his eyes again, but every time they closed, he saw and heard the sights and sounds of a knife entering a young girl's chest. He shuddered again and looked out the window.

The Hunter Residence

11:28 P.M.

"Well this bites." Jake thought to himself. He put down his X-Box controller, turned off the console and stretched. He'd been playing Halo 2 Live for the last hour or so, and his shoulders were killing him. He groaned as he felt them twinge from the strain of the stretch. He relaxed, then cracked his neck. He walked from the living room to the empty kitchen. His parents had left for some book signing (or so they said, Jake had though) almost as soon as they had arrived home, leaving Jake to his own devices. He, like the teenager he was, took advantage of his freedom and played video games for ages. However, even a teen can only withstand so much gaming, and Jake had reached that point. He climbed the stairs to his room, wondering whether or not to go to bed. His decision was made easy by the sudden chiming of his computer. He quickly shook the mouse to get it out of screen saver and looked at the forward he had received. It was the one that Alex had promised to send out. Jake read it quickly. It read:

_ALL:_

_MEET ME AT THE JAMES DEAN MEMORIAL AT 1. BRING STUFF FOR THE NIGHT._

_ALEX._

Jake quickly typed back:

_ALEX:_

_MEETING PLACE ACNOLLAGED. WILL BE THERE AT 0100 HOURS._

_JAKE _

He send the email, then shut his computer down. He looked at his clock. It showed 11:30. "Time to get to work." Jake muttered to himself. He began to pack up his equipment.

James Dean Memorial

Griffith Observatory

12:58 A.M.

Jake arrived at the Memorial about 2 minutes before the appointed time. To his surprise, Alex and Karolina where already there. He greeted them both.

"Good idea to have us meet at the memorial, Alex. Its like, all downhill from my house." He smiled, holding up the skateboard he'd ridden down on.

"Actually Jake, that was my idea." Karolina cut in. Jake turned to her and nodded.

"Well then, good idea K." He smiled at her. She returned it. Alex coughed to get Jake's attention.

"What did you bring Jake?" he asked, indicating Jake's backpack. Jake took it off and began to dig through it.

"You know, survivalist stuff. Energy bars, water bottle, GPS locater, binoculars, extra cloths, compass, maps, multi-use knife, BB gun-"

"Why do you have a BB gun?" Karolina cut in. "I don't think we're going to be fighting anybody." Jake looked up from his pack and blinked.

"K, were going up against our parents. Who knows what random shit they have installed in our houses. We need every advantage we can get."

"Um." Karolina stuttered.

"Other than that, I've got a trio of paintball grenades and a homemade flashbang grenade". Jake hoisted his pack again, then stretched. Alex was about to ask him something else when, from behind him, he heard someone muttering curses. They turned to see Chase coming up the way. He scowled when he spotted Alex.

"Hey Short Bus, Why didn't you just say meet at the planetarium?" he growled. "It took me an hour to figure out where this stupid James Dean memorial was." He looked like he was about ready to give Alex the finger when Karolina cut in.

"Sorry Chase. That was my suggestion. The planetarium's pretty much the same distance from all of our houses." She said.

"Oh, no it…it was a great idea Karolina." Chase said, a sheepish look of embarrassment plastered on his face. "I was just messing with you."

"Yeah, and my parents are from an alternate dimension." Jake scoffed. Chase shot a look at him. Jake glared back. Alex spoke, breaking the silence between them.

"I don't know why Nico's not here yet." He said, more to himself than anyone in the group. He sounded kind of tense "She replied to the forward, right? Do you think-" His worried pondering was cut short by the call of "I'm here, I'm here!" from over to the groups left. They all turned to see the appearance of Nico, followed closely by Gert, from inside the bushes. She raised her hand in greeting. "Sorry, Gert doesn't have her permit yet so I had to give her a ride."

"And I lost my stupid glasses," Gert added, looking at her feet in embarrassment. "So we had to stop and pick up contact solution and-"

"Stow the excuses Gert." Jake cut in. "We're all here, so let's get this show on the road. Alex?" He said, turning to face Alex.

"Whatever. Everyone was able to sneak out okay?" Alex asked the group.

"Yeah, my parents were practically unconscious." Gert said. "Satanic rituals must really wear down a person."

"I still feel bad leaving Molly out of the loop." Nico added, looking down at Alex's feet. "I hope she's… you know"

"As do we all, Nico." Jake said, opening an energy bar. Karolina started speaking.

"Is anyone else having a hard time processing this?" She asked. "I mean, no matter what we saw down there, it sounds like our parents have been leading some kind of freaky double lives…for years, probably. How is that possible?"

"How is it possible? Karolina, these are our parents. Maybe half the stuff that comes out of their mouths are lies." Jake said. Karolina shot a glance at him and he shut up.

"I agree with Jake." Gert said. "I mean, they've been lying since we were born."

"What do you mean by that?" Asked Chase.

"Let's see," Gert muttered, beginning to count off on her fingers. "Santa, the Tooth Fairy, the Easter Bunny, um, God." She stopped, obviously out of ideas. Jake took up the count.

"Not to mention all the lies they said concerning us." He said. "You know, like "You're the coolest kid in school. This won't hurt, your face will freeze like that…"

"Everything's going to be alright." Alex finished.

"Exactly." Jake said, pointing at Alex.

"Um, okay, so now what do we do?" Nico asked.

"Well whatever it is, we should decide as a group." Alex said, scratching the back of his head. "But I say we call the cops. They can take our parents to the Vault, or wherever they hold the Sinister Six-types these days."

"Alex, if this Pride really is a group of…of bad guys like you think it is, how come I never read about them in my History of Masked Crime elective?" Karolina asked. "I couldn't even find anything about them on the internet."

"Exactly," Chase added in quickly. "Just 'cause they dress up in stupid outfits doesn't make them super terrorists or whatever."

"Then what do you suggest they are?" Jake asked, leaning on the memorial's stone pedestal. "Role players or something?"

"Yeah, that makes sense!" Chase exclaimed. "Like some weird sick version of D&D or whatever. That would explain why we've never heard of them too."

"It's called a secret society, boys and girls. Like the Freemasons? Am I the only one who saw From Hell?"

"Wait if the Freemasons are a secret society, why do we know about them?" Jake asked.

"Jake! You interrupted my ramble!" Gert looked angrily at Jake, who held up his hands in apology.

"But if I accuse my mom and dad of something, and it turns out they didn't really do it, it could still ruin their careers. That happens all the time in Hollywood."

"Yeah, the more I think about it, the more I realize it was probably just some kind of lame performance piece. We should forget that we ever saw it and go back to our lives."

"Live in denial much, Chase?" Gert asked. "I say we get the LAPD on the horn and narc these psycho's out."

"I agree…" Alex muttered. "Which means we're two for and two against. What's your pick, Jake?" He asked, turning to face Jake.

"Me? I don't really care." Jake shrugged, leaning forward from the memorial. "Narc 'em out to the blue boys, forget about it, whatever. I'm just enjoying the freedom." He leaned back against memorial pedestal again.

"Um, okay then." Alex said slowly. "So that's two for, two against, and one neutral." He turned to Nico. "Look's like you're the tiebreaker, Nico." Nico looked rather taken aback.

"Um…" she said, twiddling her hands. "Um… I don't know, really." She looked down at her feet. "Were talking about our parents. I mean, mine aren't perfect, but they're not monsters. They never were to me, anyway." She got quieter. "But I keep thinking about that girl. She wasn't much older than us, you know? If nothing else, we should try and get to the bottom of this for her." She looked back up at Alex. "So I say…make the call." The second she finished, Chase got up in her face.

"Weak!" He yelled, shaking his finger for emphasis. "You're just voting that way 'cause you want to suck face with Alex."

"I do not!" Nico yelled back. Jake just rolled his eyes and sighed.

"I mean-" Nico managed to get out, but Jake cut her off.

"It's all cool Nico. Let it ride, you know?" He turned to Alex. "Do it."

"Um, okay then." Alex said, pulling out his cell phone. "Paul, a little dialing music…" He muttered to himself as he dialed.

"You're making a big mistake bro." Chase added.

"Chase?" Jake asked.

"What?" Chase said, turning angrily to face Jake.

"Shut the hell up."

Interestingly enough, Chase and Karolina turned out to be right. The phone call didn't go well. Jake tuned most of it out, but about three minutes after Alex started the call, his ramble was cut short by a loud click from the other end. Alex looked at the silent phone in his hand.

"Told you." Chase said.

"Guess we're on our own." Alex said, scratching the back of his head. Jake noticed he did this whenever he was stressed.

"But we can't give up!" Nico cried.

"Who said anything about giving up?" Jake added from the memorial. He leaned forward and picked up his backpack. "We just need something to make the police believe us. Evidence."

"Like what?" Chase asked. "Our parent's Halloween masks?"

"No, more like a body." Gert added.

"Exactly!" Nico joined in. "Where's the trunk now?"

"Trunk? What trunk?" Chase asked, looking confused.

"Gert's dad probably already dumped it into the tar pits or something Nico." Alex said. Nico's face fell as she realized Alex was probably right.

"Actually guys, my 'rent's carried it in as soon as we got home."

"And you think it's still there?" Karolina asked. "With the…the girl still in it?"

"There's only one way to find out." Alex muttered to himself. Jake's face lit up.

"Hell yeah! Road trip!" He bellowed, leading the way to Chase's van.

Santa Monica Freeway

En Route to the Yorkes Residence

1:59 A.M.

Gert leaned against the inside of Chase's van with a groan.

"I ran away from home, and now I'm running back there?" She said with a sigh.

"This is purely smash-and-grab, Gert." Alex said. "We'll be in and out."

"Please don't say In-N-Out. I'd kill for one of their burgers right now." Nico whined, crossing her hands over her stomach. "I have this thing with stress and food. And I'm being sarcastic, Jake." She finished, noticing Jake's attempts to quickly scoot away from her towards the back of the van. "I wouldn't really kill."

"That's what the last Gothic chick I hung out with said." Jake replied, scooting even farther. "Then she got stoned and tried to hit me over the head with a brick."

"Um, okay then." Nico responded. Jake stayed where he was. In the front of the van, Karolina was having a discussion with Chase about their ride.

"I still think we should have taken my car" she said, looking at one of the fuzzy dice hanging from Chase's rear-view mirror. "It's less conspicuous than the Shaggin' Wagon here."

"Hardly. Remember those two sniper dudes last year?" he said, smiling smugly. "Everyone in Virginia was looking for one white van, but they couldn't find one 'cause every plumber and electrician and whatever drives one. There everywhere. When I get behind the wheel of, I totally drop of The Man's radar. I'm hiding in plain sight."

"Okay, is anyone worried that some of the fruit didn't fall far enough away from the tree?" Gert asked cryptically. Jake pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed.

"Why did I agree to come with these guys?" He muttered.

The Yorkes Residence

2:43 A.M.

Gert quietly led the group down the stairs to the Yorkes basement, moving slowly from stair to stair. Alex put his finger to his lips and turned to the rest of the group.

"All right, keep the volume on low," He whispered. "We don't wanna wake the big bads."

"Dude, you have no idea how dumb that sounded." Jake whispered back.

"Don't worry, my parent's slept through the '94 earthquake." Gert said from ahead of Alex. "Plus, they bought practically the only house in California with a basement in it so I could play drums without ticking off the neighbors."

"You play drums?" Jake wondered out loud. "Man, if this keeps up, we could start a band!" Jake looked around. Nobody was laughing. "Just trying to lighten the mood…" Jake muttered.

"Try harder." Chase said, moving past Jake.

"I thought it was funny," Karolina added, patting Jake on the shoulder. "Sort of…"

"Yay for me." Jake grumbled. They continued to the basement. As they entered the basement, Jake looked around. Antiques were pilled everywhere. Jake thought it looked like a junkyard.

"Wow, it's like a whole season of Antiques Roadshow down here." Karolina said. "How are we gonna find anything?"

"Well, at least I found my accursed glasses." Gert called from the corner, turning on a light. "Granted they were in my pocket…" She muttered to herself.

"But no sign of that pirate chest. See, no evidence of nothing." Chase said from the middle of the room.

"Chase, we've been looking for about 30 seconds. Keep looking." Jake called.

"What if there's a secret passage or something? Like in Alex's house?" Nico asked from behind a telescope.

"Check around for some kind of switch…" Alex trailed off as Karolina's voice came from behind a pile of stuff. Jake followed the rest of the group to check it out. Karolina was looking under a painting hung on the wall at something Jake couldn't see.

"Hey, here's one of those security keypad things." She said. She moved back and Jake saw she was right. Nico moved closer and examined it.

"Looks like you need a five digit password," she said, looking even closer at the keys. "Something with the numbers three, four and seven."

"How can you tell?" Karolina asked, leaning closer.

"Those keys are a smidge darker than the other ones, from the oil on your fingertips, you know?" Nico replied.

"Get out! That is so C.S.I., Nico!" Karolina exclaimed. Jake quickly stood still, listing. No sound came from above, so he relaxed.

"Are there letters with the numbers?" Alex asked from behind Jake.

"Yeah, like on a phone. Why? What can you spell with those three digits?" Nico asked.

"Pride." Alex said simply. Jake did some quick calculations in his head and realized he was right.

"The name of their little club?" Chase asked. "Isn't that sorta obvious?"

"Well, my mom's AOL password is "password". Old people aren't exactly good at this stuff."

"So true, so true." Jake said with a fake sense of nostalgia. "Let's try it!" He exclaimed.

"I agree." Alex said. He motioned for Nico to open the door.

"It's not worth the risk, Alex!" Gert argued. "If my parent's catch us down here, we're dead. Literally." She looked around quickly, as if worried that they would come thundering down the stairs at that very moment. "I know I said they where heavy sleepers, but they're not-"

"Try it, Nico. I've got a feeling about this."

"Have a little faith in me." He said. Jake groaned.

"I do Alex." Nico responded, typing in the code. "I-" She was cut short by the opening of the section of wall next to the pad.

"Whoa!" Nico exclaimed.

"Holy crap!" Jake cried.

"A trapdoor? Are you kidding me?" Gert yelled.

"It worked! It actually-" Karolina joined in. She was cut short suddenly by the appearance of, from the dark bowels of the door, something large, dark, and exceedingly reptilian. It hissed menacingly. Karolina grabbed Jake's arm and yanked him back.

"What the hell is that?" Jake yelled.

End of Issue Two


	3. Issue 3, or Karolina the Glowstick

Runaways Remix: Pride and Joy

**A/N: Sorry it took so long. Writing this stuff is hard, and the school year started so I couldn't do it as fast as I could before. I also lost my flash drive, and then had to remake part of it, etc., etc. But I finally finished it, so here we go. **

**For all who are worrying this is just a rip-off of the series: don't worry, everything's going to get crazy after we get to Jake's house. It will have the same events, but they'll either come together differently or end differently**

**Disclaimer: I don't own nothing but Jake**

Runaways Remix: Pride and Joy

Issue 3

The Yorkes Residence

2:49 A.M.

Jake stared in amazement at the large, reptilian, _thing _(Jake noticed it looked quite a bit like a velocoraptor) that had emerged from the door in Gert's basement, hissing. Apparently, the rest of the group agreed with Jake's reaction.

"What the shit?" Gert cried. Instantly, the animal turned to face her.

"Nobody move!" Alex yelled, putting his arm in front of Nico to stop her from moving. "They…they only sense motion."

"What do you mean "they"?" Nico asked in confusion. "What is it?"

"That thing from Jurassic Park." Alex answered. "A…a velociraptor."

"Oh, brilliant!" Jake cried. At the sound of his voice, the raptor (or whatever it was) whipped around to face him. Jake went still and it moved on.

"That's impossible, Alex!" Karolina called from off to Jake's side. "There not-" She was cut off by the raptor turning to face her. She screamed. "Get it away!" She shrank back from it in a way that seemed (at least to Jake) almost cute. Jake moved towards it.

"Shoo! Shoo!" He yelled at it, flipping his hand. It turned and watched him in a way he didn't particularly like. He quickly stepped back. Off to his right, he heard Chase grunt as he picked up something. The raptor instantly turned to the source of the noise. The rest of the group turned as well to see Chase hefting a lamp in both hands.

"Chill, Karolina." He said, moving the lamp in his hands to get a better grip. "It's gotta be C.G.I. or whatever. I'll prove it." He continued, moving towards the raptor. It growled at him.

"Chase…" Karolina trailed off as the raptor looked back at her.

"Don't!" Alex yelled.

"Put it down!" Nico joined in.

"Your gonna get us killed!" Gert added.

"Put down the lamp, man!" Jake finished. Chase didn't seem to listen however.

"Look, it's just-" Chase said, bringing the lamp down on the raptor's head. He was cut short, however, when instead of passing through the raptor (as he obviously expected), it impacted with a loud "Crack". Instantly, the raptor focused on Chase. Chase dropped the broken lamp, and had just enough time to say "Oh" before the raptor jumped him with a roar. Chase fell with a cry. Jake looked around quickly for anything he could use as a weapon, forgetting his backpack (which he had brought with him) completely.

"Stop it!" Gert yelled. Jake braced himself for the raptor to leap her. To everyone's amazement, (Gert's included), it looked up from Chase (who was rapidly muttering the Lord's Prayer) with a confused growl. Gert leaned down to her knees. "Down girl." She said. The raptor obeyed. Gert seemed to be in shock. "Hh…Heel." She finished. Once more, the raptor followed her command, sinking to the floor with what seemed to be an regretful growl.

"How… How did you…" Alex sputtered.

"I. Have. No. Idea." Gert replied.

"What just happened?" Chase cried, trying to stand up.

"Um…" Nico said. "Is this a dream? This is to weird to be real."

"I don't know, but we have to go now!" Karolina cut in, grabbing Nico's arm and attempting to pull her towards the stairs.

"Quiet, we're gonna wake Gert's psycho parents." Alex said. "I can't deal with them and a… a whatever that thing is." He finished, pointing towards the raptor.

"It's okay, Alex." She said. "I told you, my folks sleep like the dead and they're three floors up. They can't hear-" Whatever Gert was going to say was suddenly cut off by a women's voice. "Hello Gertrude." It said. Everybody froze, except Alex and Jake. They both turned around. Standing behind them were Gert's parents, in the costume's they had seen them wearing during the party.  
"Mom? Dad?" Gert asked in shock.

"Shit!" Jake bellowed, whipping his BB gun from his backpack's side pocket. He flipped the safety off and squeezed the trigger. The gun made several loud pops and send BBs towards Gert's parents, but they passed through them as if they were ghosts.

"What the…" Jake wondered out loud.

"Wait, the dinosaur was real, but her parents are C.G.I.?" Chase wondered as Nico helped him up.

"No, I…I think those are holograms." Nico said quietly. Jake looked around and realized she was right. In the upper right corner of door that held the raptor sat a small pod-like object that had a lens on it. The lens was projecting the hologram. Gert's dad was speaking again, so Jake turned back.

"Hey squirt," Gert's dad continued. "I'm sorry, but if you're watching this projection we recorded…your mother and I are probably dead."

"What?" Gert asked, obviously confused.

"I think they mean it's like their will." Jake cut in. Gert glared at him and he shut up.

"Hopefully we were able to get this secret chamber's access code to you before we died." Gert's mom continued. Gert looked sort of embarrassed.

"Don't be absurd, Stacey." Gert's dad answered back. "If we didn't get her the code, how would she be watching us now? You think she accidentally stumbled onto all of this?"

"Well actually…" Gert said, looking at her feet.

"They can't hear you Gert." Jake said with a sigh, pinching the bridge of his nose. Gert ignored him. Gert's mom began speaking again, but Jake tuned it out. Screw it, he thought, it isn't my problem. He wandered aimlessly around looking for anything interesting. Something caught his eye. He moved over to the box it was in. It appeared to be a hollow handle of metal with plastic-like grips and a gold-like plaiting. Jake wrenched it out and studied it closely. To his surprise, he recognized it as a lightsaber, just like the one he'd seen in the store downtown. This one was heavier though, and actually made of metal. He turned it around. Attached to the bottom was a card. Jake opened it. It read:

_Dale:_

_Happy Will-be Birthday! Many Happy Returns_

_The Hunters_

"Will-be birthday? What the hell is a will-be birthday?" Jake thought as he closed the card again and continued to examine the saber. He noticed something sticking out of the open part at the top. He pulled it out. It was another card, but this one was more of a museum label. He flipped it over and read:

_Lightsaber,  
__Windu, Mace  
__Recovered From Imperial Center, 3 BBY_

"What the…" Jake wondered to himself. He scratched his head in confusion. He knew "BBY" meant "Before Battle of Yavin", the standard time mark for Star Wars history during the Galactic Civil War, but the rest made no sense. A small portion of the Yorkes recorded conversation drifted over to him.

"-If you're seeing this before your 18, or if something has happened to the Deans, talk to the Hunters. I'm sure their translation program has been worked out by now."

"Shit!" Jake cursed, realizing he'd probably missed something important. He whirled around, throwing the saber back into the box and looking for the way back to the rest of the group. He thought he found it, only to run into a dead end. He reversed and tried another way. Same result. This went on for about two minutes, at which point Jake found the correct way and meet up with the rest of the group, who hadn't moved at all. He arrived in time to see the tail end of the recording. There was a click and the projector shut down.

"Okay, um…Huh?" Gert asked. Jake noticed she was holding a large black-leather book in her left hand.

"So can we go to the police now?" Nico asked, staring intently at the spot where the hologram had been. "Please?"

"With what?" Alex asked. "We've got Gert's parents claiming to be time travelers, but nothing to show they helped kill that girl."

"Are you nuts?" Chase yelled. "They've got psychic raptors in their basement!"

"Yeah, and Siegfeild and Roy have white tigers in their's." Gert answered. It doesn't mean they're criminals, just...odd." She tickled the raptor under it's chin.

"Uh, Gert?" Jake cut in. "You may not want to do that..."

"Huh?" Gert said, suddenly startled from her thoughts. "Oh, don't worry. She's cool with it."

"We can discuss what Gert does with her raptor later, Jake." Alex cut in. "We still need a smoking gun to put away our parents for good. Without it, they'll probably just Shapiro their way out and kill us as soon as they're free."

"What about that not-so-little black book of theirs?" Nico asked. "Didn't they say it's got info on all they're crimes and stuff? Maybe that'll tell us where they hid the girl's body."

"Yeah, one problem with that Nico." Gert added. She lifted the book and held it out to Nico to read. "It's in code."  
"So let's decode it!" Nico cried. "We just need is either that magic decrypto ring from Karolina's place or that weird decode program from Jake's."

"Yeah, but where do we go?" Alex asked.

"Who's house is closer?" Gert asked.

"K's." Jake said simply.

"My house?" Karolina looked shocked. "But...My parents can't really be part of this. They might be a little eccentric, but they're not evil. They don't even eat meat!"

"Yeah, well neither did Hitler..." Gert said, trailing off into her own thoughts again. Jake nodded in agreement. Alex began speaking again.

"Karolina, if you'd seen what the rest of us saw back at my house, you'd understand." He said. I'm with Nico. We should press on to your pad next." He turned towards Gert. "First we've got to decide what to do with this...thing."

"Why don't we take it with us?" Jake asked. "I mean, if it's really from the future, and they can prove it, they'll have to believe what we saw."

"And how do you suppose we transport it without it possible turning us into steak?"

"Well, my parents said that I had mental control over it…" Gert muttered.

"And you're going to believe them?" Alex said, raising an eyebrow. "The same people who've been lying to us since before we were born?"

"Good point."

"So now what?" Chase said, pacing in the background. "I wanna hit the road man! The more time we spend down here, the less time we have to find _anything_."

"We put it back where it came from." Alex said, pointing towards the room from whence the dinosaur came. "We're conspectus as it is with the six of us, we don't need a…a dinosaur to make ourselves stand out more."

"Fair enough." Gert said with a sigh. She turned to the raptor. "Sorry girl. Guess that means its back to the dog house for you. Don't worry, I'll be back for you when this is all over, okay?" She patted the raptor's small forepaw. It growled softly.

"And I though my life was weird yesterday." Chase muttered to himself.

"Tell me about it." Jake agreed, striding towards the steps

Ventura Freeway

3:38 A.M.

Jake sat in the back of Chase's van, staring pensively out the window. He gazed at the back of his hand as it rested against the window. In the front, Chase and Alex argued over what to do. Jake tuned them out. _Something's wrong with me_, he though. Ever since the meeting, he had been feeling, different. It was hard to explain. He squeezed his hand into a fist. It seemed that he could see the muscles that controlled it more clearly, as it they had come closer to the surface. He could swear he could see better in the dark too. That, and he felt like his veins had been filled with iced lighting. He yawned and rubbed his face, then opened his pack and grabbed an energy drink. He swallowed the entire thing in one gulp. _Maybe I'm just tired. I shouldn't have played so much Halo 2_. He dropped the empty can into his pack and sighed.

"You okay?" Gert asked from behind him.

"Fine. I'm just tired." He laughed quietly.

"What's so funny?" Nico said from next to Gert, putting down the black book (which Jake had learned was apparently called the Abstract).

"Just yesterday, I was worried that I might lose a rank on Halo 2 multiplayer. And now, here I am, riding in a van with five other kids trying to put my parents away for murder. Amazing how much can change in 24 hours." He sighed again. Gert and Nico nodded, then went back to looking out the window and studying the Abstract (respectively). Jake closed his eyes and unintentionally fell asleep.

He opened his eyes. He wasn't in the van anymore. He lay in a glass tank, (nude, he realized to his embarrassment) with the room outside dark. He freaked for a second or so till he realized that it was a dream. He relaxed, settling himself against the back of the tank. Outside, a door off to his left opened, spilling light into the room. Jake caught a brief flash of two other tanks like his before the door closed again and the light snapped off. Voices drifted to his ear from outside.

"…Glad to hear the S-X's are doing well. We're going to need them soon." A gravely male voice said from Jake's left.

"Yes, they will be ready, many thanks to you and your funding, but we have had a few…dilemmas with a couple of them." A cool female voice sounded from the same place.

"Nothing to serious, I hope." The male voice sounded threatening.

"No, not at all. In fact, with a little tweaking, the four in question could far exceed our wildest predictions. It is merely some, shall we say, emotional problems with their families."

"Emotional?"

"Yes. The parents of X's 195, 208, and 297 are worried about the augmentation process."

"They must think of us as a new version of Section 3."

"Indeed. However, as per protocol, I have several agents en route to…belay their fears."

"Excellent. Now the last unit."

"Yes. X-305 is a most interesting case. His parents where the exact opposite of the others. We actually had to talk them down from some of the augmentations they wanted done to their child."

"Really?" The male voice sounded intrigued.

"Yes, sir. The level of augmentation they requested hasn't been tried since the S-II's. Look here." There was a sound of shuffling papers, then the male voice grunted.

"I see. Who could have…" he stopped, as the sound of more papers shuffling reached Jake's ears. "But of course." The voice muttered to himself. "Who else but-"

"It's not a clubhouse, you condescending piece of-" Chase's bellow cut through Jake's dream and jerked him awake. Jake shook his head to clear it and loosen the shroud of sleepiness that had descended on him. Karolina shoved herself between the front seats."

"Settle, Chase" She said, directing her attention to the driver's side seat. "I understand why you're nervous, but you don't have to worry about my place. My parents aren't even home."

"They're not?" Alex asked in surprise.

"Yeah, they had to catch a red-eye flight to New York after your parent's party. They said something about a script reading for some play."

"Though after this, who knows what they're really up to?" Alex raised an eyebrow.

"All I know is they aren't home. And really, that's all that matters."

"Wait, your parent's leave you alone when they go out of town? Man, you are so lucky!" Chase said in amazement. Alex just sighed.

"Jake? You still asleep again?" Nico asked, looking up from the Abstract.

"Huh?" Jake said, feeling confused.

"You dozed off for a second or so."

"Really?" Jake blinked. He felt like he'd been asleep for at least fifteen minutes.

"I'm still fine." He said. Nico nodded and went back to reading. Jake looked out the window. The truth was, he wasn't fine. Somehow, his dream seemed real. More of a subconscious memory than a flight of fancy. And that women's voice…he'd heard it somewhere before. He sighed and sat back against the side of the van.

The Dean Residence

4:14 A.M.

Jake looked around Karolina's pad in amazement. The house was enormous, bigger than anything he had been in recently. He whistled. He continued onward, looking for anything that might hold a ring. There wasn't anything though. Jake cursed in frustration and kept going. The next room held the same result. Jake moved on again. He found himself back in the main room. Alex and Gert were on the same floor as him, with Karolina on the one above.

"This room's clean. Any luck up there Karolina?" Alex called.

"Nope, Nico and I have been through every jewelry box and trinket drawer in the house. No offence, but I seriously don't think my parents are like the rest of yours. They're good people."

"Well keep looking for some kind of switch or keypad thing." Alex fitted his words by examining a strange abstract painting that had been stuck on the wall.

"Why? Just cause one of our houses is tricked out doesn't mean this place is."

"Wouldn't hurt to keep looking." Jake muttered as he examined the wall for anything unusual.

"Never fear kiddies," Chase's voice came from one of the adjacent rooms. Chase himself appeared seconds later, holding a sheaf of papers. "Chase is on the case, and he just hit paydirt."

"What is it?" Jake asked.

"Mr. Deans last will and testament."

"What does that have to do with anything?" Alex asked.

"It's basically what we found at Gert's place, right? Instructions on what to do if her parents kicked the bucket?"

"He's got a point, Alex. That is where we got our last lead." Nico said, heading down the stairs.

"Hey! That's private!" Karolina shouted from behind Nico.

"Oh, and the trap door in Gert's basement wasn't?" Jake said, raising an eyebrow.

"You know K, if I didn't know better, I'd think you were afraid to look into your parents stuff." He smiled and braced himself, half expecting Karolina to hit him. To his surprise, she simply bit her lip and stared at the ground.

"Relax, its pretty boring; they didn't leave you any dinosaurs or anything at least." Gert said, shuffling through the papers. "Just the usual legal junk.

"Yeah, but check out the last page" Alex said, pulling said sheet out of the pile. He started reading off of it. "And to our beloved daughter Karolina, we bequeath the following, may she use it wisely." He stopped.

"Um, so what did they leave her?" Jake said.

"Doesn't say, there's just this." Alex held the sheet out for everybody to see. It was a picture of a winged pole encircled by two snakes.

"A caduceus? What the hell does that have to do with Karolina?" Jake asked.

"Well, it is the symbol for medicine, which is why-" Gert began, but Chase cut her off.

"Yeah, yeah, we've all been to the hospital, showoff. But why's it got the Ghostbuster's symbol around it?"

"I don't know, but that snake thing is carved on my MedAlert bracelet." Karolina said, rolling up her left sleeve. True to her word, the bracelet sat there.

"Maybe your parents were trying to tell you not to wear it anymore?" Nico suggested.

"Why? I've had this thing on since I was four. My parents told me never to take it off. I'm like, deadly allergic to penicillin."

"Do you know you're allergic to penicillin, or is that just what your parents said?" Alex asked.

"Why would they lie about something like that? They're trustworthy people." Karolina took the will paper and looked at it as she finished talking.

"Trustworthy?" Jake said, his voice rising in frustration. "Karolina, these people have been part of a secret organization, probably since before you were born to boot, and have the blood of at least one innocent girl on their hands. I would say they are the exact anti-trustworthy."

"Jake's right, you know." Alex added in. Karolina glared at him.

"Look," she said, hands balling in furry. "I don't know what the hell you saw down there, but these people are still my parents." She turned her gaze on Jake. "So go ahead and make insults at them and call them murderers, but I still think they haven't done anything."

"You want to prove us wrong?" Alex asked quietly. "Then take off that bracelet." Karolina glared at him again.

"Why? This picture doesn't have to relate to it. It probably means that…that they don't want me to go to medical school." Karolina exhaled with a rush, then inhaled just as forcefully, and continued to grasp at straws. "Or stay away from conventional medicine. They're all about homeopathics and stuff like that." she concluded.

"So if they've got nothing to hide, why are you still wearing that thing?" Nico asked, pointing at Karolina's wrist.

"It's a free country. I don't have to-" She was cut off mid-rant by Jake, who, stepping between Chase and Nico with a hardly apologetic and rather gruff "excuse me", bounded up the Karolina, grabbed her left wrist with enough strength to make her fingers twitch involuntarily, and ripped the bracelet off. Chunks of the chain that had held it to her wrist flew off, falling to the floor with soft clinks. Jake stepped back, hands shaking and breathing hard.

"Ow!" Karolina cried, rubbing her wrist. "What the hell was that for Jake?" She yelled. She looked around, still holding her wrist. "Nothing happening. Nothing wrong with me. Nothing." She closed her eyes in emphasis and spread her hands out. As she did, Jake watched as a single piece of the chain fell to the ground. Suddenly, a blinding light appeared in front of the group, forcing Jake and the rest to close their eyes.

"See?" Karolina yelled. All she got back was a chorus of "Gah!", "Argh!" "My eyes!" and "What the hell?" Like the rest of them, Jake was blinded, but his vision was returning quickly. While his eyes were still closed, he felt something brush his hand. He opened his eyes and looked at it. It was Karolina's hair braid. He heard her whisper something, and cracked his eyes open. Karolina stood still, staring in amazement at her hands. She seemed to be surrounded by a kaleidoscopic array of rainbow light, which constantly swirled and shifted. No, Jake realized. She wasn't surrounded by it. She was _producing_ it. The light coated every part of her body, but here hair seemed to be the most effected. It fanned out behind her like water, swirling and trailing streamers of light as she examined her self. Her mouth hung open in amazement, and Jake got a glimpse of its interior. He was surprised to see even Karolina's tongue and throat seemed to be made of the strange light.

"What is she?" Jake muttered to himself.

"I don't know," Chase murmured in return. "But it's beautiful. Like…like a burning painting or-" His list was cut off as Karolina bellowed "Get away!" and turned her back on the group. As she turned, more streamers of light appeared, throwing themselves off of her exposed skin. She looked in horror at her hands, as if they had suddenly sprouted claws and spikes instead of becoming kaleidoscopic.

"What's wrong with me? What am I?" she cried, voice raised in fear.

"An angel." Chase suggested.

"There's no such thing as angels." Jake replied. "She's got to be a...a mutant or something."

"She can't be." Nico said. "I mean, there's nothing wrong with that, but...she's too old to just turn into one isn't she?"

"From what I heard, yeah." Alex narrowed his eyes in thought as Karolina continued to stare at her hands and arms. "So that can't be it."

"Maybe she's an alien?" Gert suggested. Chase snickered.

"Yeah, right. There's about as much chance of her being an alien as-"

"No, I think Gert might be right." Alex said. "Remember, just before our parents stabbed that girl, didn't my dad say something about Karolina's parents dealing with "off-world enemies?"

"I didn't catch that." Chase said, smiling sheepishly.

"So?" Jake asked. "You think Karolina's rent's are part of the Covenant or something?"

"The what?" Gert looked confused.

"Play Halo." Jake said simply. Alex coughed to bring them back to the subject.

"I'm not saying anything about her parents, Jake. I'm just saying that they might not, you know, be from around here."

"You really think I'm an alien?" Karolina asked. She had turned her shocked gaze to the streams of light trailing off her finger tips.

"Well, yeah." Alex said, seeming slightly taken aback. "I mean, maybe being on this planet gives your parents and you these…powers or whatever, and that bracelet is made of some mineral that blocks those abilities, sorta like-"

"You've been watching too many WB shows, bro. that's ridiculous."

"That does sound a lot like the plot of Smallville." Jake added. But in the back of his mind, he was starting to believe Alex. Random bits of information he never knew he had learned floated through his mind, dancing in front of his eyes. Maps, diagrams, lists, reports, they all flew through his subconscious. _What the…_ he thought. He shook his head, and they were gone. He snapped back into the real world in time to hear the tail end of the speech Gert was giving in support of Alex. Karolina looked at her, pain filling her eyes.

"So I'm the daughter of some kind of…space invaders?" She asked, her voice filled with pain as well. "God, first you tell me that my parents are evil, and now I find out I'm not even human? And on top of all this-" she cut herself off with an enormous sob, and tears began to flow down her cheeks. Jake had an urge to comfort her, but one of the streamers of light came into contact with his fingertips and his entire hand went numb. He pulled it back and shook it to get the feeling back in. None of the group seemed to have noticed it. While he was doing that, Karolina continued to babble almost incoherently, head in her hands. But as she did this, her feet left the floor and she started to rise towards the ceiling. Chase was first to notice.

"Uh, K? You do realize you're floating, right?" He said, mouth open in amazement.

"Wha?" Karolina said, looking down at her feet. Jake (and the rest of the group) looked up from beneath them. She floated for several seconds, absolutely speechless. Suddenly her face broke into a smile. "I can fly." She exclaimed softly. She suddenly shot towards the ceiling. "I can fly!" she exclaimed.

"We are so dead." Alex said.

End of Issue 3


	4. Issue 4, or Jake Hunter, Super Soldier?

**A/N: I'm sorry this took so long, but I've been re-editing my writing style so Jake doesn't sound too much like an Insert. Also, from here on out, the story will only loosely resemble the series. New dialog, new events (more or less), new problems, etc. You get the idea. And so, without further ado, the Remix truly begins. **

Runaways Remix: Pride and Joy

Issue Four

The Dean Residence  
4:28 A.M.

Jake looked up in amazement at the streak of light that was Karolina. To his right, the rest of the group stood watching her as well. They'd followed Karolina into the pool area after she'd managed to fly her way out of the door. Alex scratched the back of his neck again.

"We are so dead." He said.

"Oh yeah, we didn't hear you the first eight times!" Chase barked at him. Nico glared in return.

"Ease it up, Chase. We're all under a lot of stress right now." She said.

"Not Karolina." Gert added, turning her head to follow the flying girl as she preformed a barrel roll worthy of the Thunderbirds. She swooped lower with a cry of delight, which suddenly transformed into a grunt as she collided first with Chase, then Nico. She would have nailed Jake too, if he hadn't dived out of the way at the last minute. The three of them bounced back towards the house in a tangle of arms and legs.

"Nice roll, Hunter." Gert noted as Jake picked himself up and dusted himself off. Jake frowned.

"You know, I couldn't do that before." He said thoughtfully.

"Yeah, well the possibility of being hit by a trio of speeding teenagers would defiantly be enough to make anyone push their boundaries." Alex added from the side of the house, where he was helping Nico to her feet.

"No, seriously, I've never…forget it." Jake sighed and ran over to help Gert and Alex by picking up Chase respectively. After much coughing, dusting and cursing (primarily from Chase) the group trudged back to the pool.

"What's it feel like?" Nico asked Karolina.

"What does what feel like?" The glowing girl answered.

"Uh, well, flying." Nico blushed and grinned apologetically. Karolina stopped and thought, putting her hand to her chin.

"You know those butterflies you get when you see someone you like?" She asked.

"Yeah, what about them?" Nico asked.

"Imagine they could flap hard enough to lift you off the ground." Karolina smiled brightly (both figuratively and literally, as the glow from her body seemed to increase as she did).

"Sounds uncomfortable." Nico said, looking as if she was sorry she'd asked.

"Actually it's kind of nice. Here." Karolina said, and took Nico's hand. The Asian girl suddenly stopped and gasped. She seemed to stand up straighter as well. Nico let go and slumped down again. Karolina's smile suddenly faulted, as she remembered something. "Almost nice enough to make me forget I'm some alien freak."

"Oh, not this again." Jake groaned. He pinched the bridge of his nose once more.

"What?" Karolina shouted, turning angrily to Jake. "What do you think I am?"

"A human girl with superpowers." Jake said simply. He crossed his arms, daring anyone to disagree with him.

"'Genetics may make the physical being of a person, but they don't make that person's heart.'" Alex quoted.

"Yeah, jeez K." Chase added. "Just cause you're the kid of some evil aliens-"

"_Chase_!" Gert cut him off.

"Fine, whatever your parents are. You aren't them." He smiled reassuringly, which irked Jake for some reason.

"I guess so." Karolina looked at her hands, watching the streamers of light fly off them. "Still…"

"Look, we don't have time for this." Alex said. The rest of the group turned to face him. Jake noticed he was holding something. Alex held it up to the crowd, and Jake recognized it as Karolina's bracelet. "Right now I think it's time for you to come back to earth."

"Why? If my parents are who you say they are, why do I have to wear this…anchor again?" She asked.

"Because this "anchor" turns off your LED-skin. We can't have you lighting up the night."

"Yeah, we need you incognito, not a walking movie premiere." Chase added. Karolina grumbled, but she put the thing back on, clipping it closer to her wrist than it had originally been to make up for the shattered links. The moment it touched her, the lights on her skin faded into nothingness.

"So what's our next move?" Chase asked.

"Not sure." Alex replied. "This "club" or whatever our parents are part of is really starting to sound a lot more dangerous than we thought."

"Then we need to keep looking for more stuff to put them away, right?" Gert asked.

"No, we've already got that. Remember the Abstract or whatever the hell that black book is?" added Chase. Most of the group looked at him in shock.

"Yeah, I was listening." Chase said defiantly. "Now, again, why don't we just turn in that book?"

"Because we can't read it. Which is why we came here." Jake replied. "Not that it did us any good."

"So we're back to square one, basically." Nico interjected.

"Not necessarily." Karolina said. "Gert's parents said something about a translation program at Jake's house, didn't they?"

"Hey, yeah!" Chase cried. "What are we standing around here for? Let's go!"

"Because we don't know if it's actually there. We didn't find the ring that was supposed to be here, did we?" Nico hissed.

"But Gert's mom didn't say it was here." Alex added. "Just that Gert was supposed to get it from Karolina's parents when she turned eighteen."

"So it might be there." Chase pressed.

"Or not." Nico interjected quickly.

"There's only one way to know for sure. We need to check. " Alex said. He turned to Jake. "Are there any rooms or places where your parents might hide something?"

Jake thought for a second. "There's this room in my attic that my parents keep locked. My dad says he keeps comics and antiques and collectable stuff up there." He replied.

"Have you ever been inside?" Alex pressed.

"No. My parents said never to go up there."

"Well," Gert said, turning. "If what we've seen tonight is any clue, that probably means there's something connected to this group in there."

"So let's go!" Chase shouted again. The rest of the group looked angrily at him.

"You know, for someone who a couple hour's ago thought we should just forget about all this, you seem pretty invested in bringing these guys down." Alex noted.

"Yeah, well, that was before we found all this crap related to them. I mean, come on! Gert's got a telepathic dinosaur, Karolina can fly…who knows what the rest of us can do?"

"What is this to you?" Nico asked. "Some kind of scavenger hunt?"

"No!" Chase denied. But the whole group could see he was lying.

"Look, do you guys wanna go to my place, or not?" Jake asked. The rest of the group looked at Alex.

"Let's go." He said, and began walking towards the car. The rest of the group followed behind him.

"Any chance we could stop by my place after this?" Chase asked. Alex opened his mouth to reprimand him, but was cut off as Gert suddenly cried out. The rest of the group looked at her.

"What the heck was that?" Karolina asked.

"Sorry." Gert said, embarrassed. "I just felt like, well, like someone was watching us."

"Oh great." Chase muttered. "That usually means someone is watching them. And they're about to be killed. Or kidnapped."

"Or infected with a parasitic life-from." Jake added quickly, remembering a section of the first Halo game.

"Relax." Karolina said, almost laughing. "My parents chose this house cause it's like, totally paparazzi proof. The closest house is a couple miles away. Not to mention they're out of town."

"Still…" Gert muttered.

"Come on, let's get the hell out of here." Alex finished, taking charge again. The group fell into a ragged line, with Jake at the back. He slowed for a second, lost in thought. A sudden sense of dread filled him. He shouldn't be doing this. It wasn't smart. It-

"You coming Jake?" Gert's voice snapped Jake out of his thoughts. He steeled his face and pushed his problems to the side.

"Yeah, hold on." He said, then quickly followed the rest to Chase's van.

Ventura Freeway  
En Route to the Hunter Residence  
4:32 A.M.

Jake sat quietly, watching Karolina and thinking. The anger towards her he'd felt earlier haunted the back of his mind. He focused on Karolina. She looked up at him.

"Something wrong, Jake?" She asked.

"No, not really. Just…well, I'm sorry." Jake smiled apologetically. Karolina looked confused.

"For what?"

"The bracelet thing. Back at your house."

"Oh." Karolina smiled slightly. "Yeah, well, I guess I should say sorry for getting angry at you."

"Thanks, I guess." Jake fell silent.

"Oy, Jake!" Chase called from the driver's seat. "This the exit?"

"Let me see." Jake replied. A quick look out the window proved Chase correct. Jake nodded, and Chase turned off the freeway and up a road. Jake suddenly felt tense as he neared his house.

"Showtime." He murmured.

The Hunter Residence  
4:37 A.M.

Alex led the group up the path towards Jake's house. He looked over his shoulder at Jake.

"So, how do we get in?" He asked.

"That's the easy part. I'll get the door." Jake smiled.

"Then what?" Alex pressed.

"Well, we go in and up the stairs to the right. The attic's at the top." Jake stopped smiling as he remembered something. "Oh, wait, that's locked. And I don't know where the key is."

"Then we need to find another way in." Alex said decisively. "Can we get onto your roof?"

"Sure. We're on it right now." The group looked down at their feet.

"Uh, this looks more like a lawn to me." Gert said skeptically.

"Oh, yeah, it is. But it's also the roof too. Most of my house is under ground, bunker style."

"Really?" Nico asked in surprise. Jake simply nodded and pointed up the hill to where the only visible part of his house stood. I wasn't much more than a concrete rectangle with sloping sides and windows. A small sundeck rose from the back corner, but that was about it. Alex stepped next to Jake.

"So, can you guess where the attic is, approximately?" He asked. Jake thought for a bit.

"Yeah, follow me." He quickly moved a couple yards away, then stopped. The group fell in behind him. Alex looked around, then started giving orders again.

"Alright, everyone look for something that could hide a hatch or window or something. And be careful." He focused his final words on Chase.

"Hey, jeez!" Chase relied. "I always caref-" The rest of his words were drowned out with a cry as he suddenly disappeared from view. The group rushed over to see he had fallen down a hatch of some form that had been hidden by grass, which had slid back as he had stepped on it. Jake pulled out his flashlight and shined it down. Chase was on his back, but moving. He managed to heave himself into a sitting position.

"You okay?" Nico called out.

"Yeah, I think so." He looked up. "This your attic?" He asked Jake.

"I think so." Jake swung his light around a little. He couldn't see much, but the size of the space resembled his attic.

"Alright, move away." Alex called down. "We're coming in." He fitted action to his words by jumping down into the hole. The group heard his grunt as he landed. Jake focused his light on him. He seemed alright, and motioned for the rest of the group to follow. They did, first Nico, then Gert, Karolina and finally Jake. They were instantly swallowed by almost complete darkness. The only light was from Jake's flashlight, which illuminated patches of bare wall.

"Oh perfect." Chase grumbled. "There's nothing here. Big surprise."

"There might be something here." Nico said, reaching out into the darkness. "I just wish I could see more."

"Yeah, what I wouldn't give for some light." Jake said. Suddenly, a dozen recessed lights snapped on with a _pop_. Everyone cried out and shielded their eyes.

"Shit!" Chase cursed. The group slowly recovered and looked around to see…nothing. Jake felt strangely disappointed.

"See? Told you." Chase growled.

"There still might be something." Alex said. "We haven't actually looked around."

"Then let's look." Gert said. The group complied, rapidly checking the area. After a couple minutes, they all turned up empty handed.

"Alex, I don't think there's anything here." Karolina said quietly.

"That doesn't make any sense." Alex said quietly. "Jake said his parent's said he couldn't go up here, but why would they try to keep him out of an empty room?"

"Maybe the thought it was fun controlling him." Gert suggested. "I swear that's how my mom is sometimes."

"So we're basically stuck in a hole with nothing to show for it." Chase spat. "Great plan, Alex. What now?"

"We find a way out." Alex replied. "Where's the door, Jake?" He asked, turning to face the teen in question. But Jake wasn't listening. He saw something. On one of the walls, at the back of the room, was a glowing panel of some kind. Jake found himself drawn towards it.

"Jake? Where're you going?" Gert asked.

"To check out that panel." Jake said quietly.

"What panel?" Nico asked.

"That one on the wall."

"There's no panel. There's nothing there, Jake." Nico put emphasis on the _nothing_.

"Yeah there is. Can't you see it?" Jake asked. He stopped in front of the panel. It was see-through (holographic, Jake guessed) and glowed blue and red and was covered with holographic "buttons". It seemed…familiar to him. But he was sure he'd never seen one before. Hesitantly, he reached out to it. He didn't really know what he was doing, but his body seemed to have stopped listening to him. His index finger tapped a "button" in the upper right corner, a red circle surrounded buy a red ring like a bulls eye. To his surprised, the "button" yielded to his finger, the center dot sinking slightly. There was a click, and it stopped. Nothing happened.

"Huh." Jake said, feeling strangely surprised. "I guess that was a big waste of-"

There was a sudden hum, and the room instantly changed.

Where there had been nothing, tables, racks and shelves appeared, shimmering before the shocked eyes of Jake and his friends. A computer terminal phased into view in front of where Jake was standing, replacing the panel he had touched. In the far corner, a large, military-looking aircraft of some form popped into existence. Things began to appear as well. Books, tools, equipment of all kinds…and guns. Lots and lots of guns.

"Whoa." Karolina murmured.

"Ditto." Nico added.

"What is this stuff?" Gert asked, looking in amazement at one of the larger tables in the room.

"Weapons, from the looks of it." Alex said, looking over the room with a fresh eye. He picked up a small plastic sheet, which lit up as he touched it. Jake watched over his shoulder as lines of data and diagrams flowed over it. "Weapons and information."

"Well what about that?" Chase asked, pointing at the aircraft in the corner. Jake's mouth dropped open.

"That's a Longsword." He said in awe. The rest of the group looked at him quizzically. "They're fighter-bombers. From the Halo games." He explained. He turned to the ship. "This one looks cut down."

"How can you tell?" Nico asked.

"Cause if I remember correctly, the full size one has the wing area of a 737."

"Oh." Nico said. Jake smiled, and began walking among the tables and racks. He found (to his surprise) he could name most of the stuff. Surprise was replaced with excitement as he realized quite a bit of the technology in the room seemed based on things from the Halo series. MA5B assault rifles, BR-55 Battle Rifles, M6C and D pistols, M90 CAWS shotguns, a couple M41 SSR MAW/AV Rocket Launchers, multiple Sniper Rifle, even (shockingly) several large groups of weapons that resembled Covenant tech. Not to mention stuff that looked Halo-esc, but he couldn't name. Basically every weapon in the Halo universe and more. And that weaponry didn't even take up half the room. Jake found himself grinning uncontrollably as he recognized weaponry from Star Wars, Quake, Doom, Half-Life…pretty much any shooter series.

"Okay, this is officially crazy." Gert said, looking at something which Jake recognized as a 30 mm "Confetti Maker" submachine gun.

"I'll say." Chase muttered, picking up a MA5B. "Where'd Jake's parent's get this much firepower?"

"Forget the guns or whatever this stuff is, what about that translation program?" Karolina asked.

"Good point K." Alex said. "We need to keep looking for that." Alex turned. "Jake?"

"Yeah?" Jake looked up from the M9 HE-DP fragmentation grenade he was examining.

"Go check that computer, would you?"

"Why me?" Jake was genuinely curious.

"Because this room seems to respond to you." Alex replied simply. Jake nodded, understanding.

"Wilco, boss." He said, smiling wider even though no-one got the joke. Jake moved quickly to the terminal and sat himself down in the chair in front of it. This time, however, he felt no compulsion to press anything. So he went to the old teenage fall back: random choice. After a quick look over the three holographic keyboards (of which only one looked even remotely familiar to him) he jabbed what he hoped would be a promising button. There was a _click_, and Jake found himself face to face with a foot-high, brilliant blue (and, in Jake's opinion, somewhat hot) holographic girl. Jake was so surprised he literally fell out of his chair. He quickly picked himself up, called that he was okay over his shoulder to the curious group behind him, and managed to get a better look at the hologram. It (or she, Jake realized) had the form of a young girl, clothed in some form of naval officers uniform. Her hair was shoulder length and tied into a ponytail. Data of some form or another rippled along her body and through her hair. She stood professionally, hands clasped behind back. The whole thing was being projected from a smooth glass-like surface in the just above the upper right of the center keyboard. Jake had just managed to get over his shock of seeing her there when she began to speak.

"This had better be good," She said, voice sounding like rushing water. "I was in the middle of cataloguing…" She stopped as she suddenly noticed Jake. "Who in the Hells are you?" She asked. Jake was attempting to get some words out when she cut him off. "Never mind, I can find out myself. Finally, a chance to use this DNA scanner." She put her hand to her temple as if in thought, and Jake suddenly felt as if he was being mentally striped down. After a couple seconds, she stopped and held up her hand. A rotating model of a DNA strand appeared in it. She studied it for a bit, then made it disappear with a flick of her hand and turned to Jake. "You must be Jacob Hunter." She said. Jake noticed the faint traces of a smile in the corners of her lips.

"Uh, yeah, that's me." He said sheepishly. "And you would be…"

"My official serial number is HNA2-37A." She replied. Jake went quiet, lost in thought.

"HNA…" He muttered to himself. He'd heard that before. Something suddenly struck him. "Hannah?" He asked. The hologram openly smiled.

"That's what you parents call me." She said. Everything began to fall into place for Jake. His parents had mentioned a "Hannah" on several occasions over the years, usually in conjunction with work, which, now that he thought about it, most likely referred to the group they were part of. That was where he'd heard the name before. He was yanked rudely from his thoughts by a sudden pain in the back of his neck. He reached up to feel it, but felt nothing wrong. He went back to the girl (no, Hannah, he reminded himself).

"So, uh, how'd you get here?" He asked.

"Your parents acquired me illegally from pirates, who captured me during a raid on a UNSC base in the Outer Colonies." She replied. Jake was floored.

"You mean…Halo's _real_?" He said in awe.

"In a different universe, yes." Hannah replied calmly. Jake ran a hand through his hair.

"Is that where all this stuff came from? Other universes?"

"Mostly. There is some original material here, but its mostly extra-dimensional"

"Whoa. Maybe Chase was just messing with Karolina back at the memorial." Jake turned back to Hannah. "So are my parents, what, extra-dimensional arms dealers or something?"

"Yes." Hannah replied simply. Jake literally stopped thinking for a full half minute. When he finally came back to himself. Hannah was looking at him.

"So, my turn to ask the questions." She said. "Why are you here? And don't lie, I can tell if you are."

"We're looking for stuff to put our parents away for what they've done." Jake said. Hannah seemed to perk up.

"You wanna take them down, eh?" She asked, cupping her chin in a hand. "Anything I can do to help."

"You'd really help us?" Jake asked, shocked.

"Hells yeah!" Hannah exclaimed. "Your parents stole me, remember? Just cause they make me do stuff for them doesn't mean I like them."

"Well, in that case, sure." Jake leaned in closer. "We got word that my parent's were working on this translation program for their group. You know where that is?"

"The Abstract Language Modulation Program? Sure." Hannah smiled again, but this one seemed feral to Jake. He swallowed. "I'll tell you, on one condition."

"What's that?" Jake asked.

"You unlock my avatar. I've been stuck like this for I don't know how long, and this is defiantly not me."

"Oh." Jake said. He exhaled. If that was all she wanted…

"How do I do it?" He asked.

"Hit the flashing button." Hannah pointed towards the keyboard, on which one of the buttons was indeed flashing. Jake reached out and hesitantly pressed it. There was a hiss, and Hannah's holographic form dissolved into static. Seconds later she was back, but changed. Her hair was now free, falling over her back like a curtain. The naval uniform was gone, replaced by a T-Shirt emblazoned with the words "UNSC: Kicking Xeno Ass Since 2525" and a pair of heavily loaded cargo pants. She also now wore half gloves, similar to what Jake had worn when riding his bike, and combat boots. A pair of headphones slung around her neck completed the outfit.

"Well, what do you think?" Hannah asked, spinning around to show herself off. Jake couldn't help but grin.

"Nice. Now, the program?"

"Oh, right. Here." Hannah put her hand to her temple again and windows began to flash across the computer screen. They flipped by so fast it was almost impossible for Jake to keep track of them. Finally, they stopped, and a download bar appeared.

"What's this?" Jake asked, motioning at the bar.

"Apparently your parent's thought I might get into the program without their permission. They didn't store the program on their home computers. I had to take a back route, jack into one of the outside storage facilities the Pride maintains and download one of the back up versions they have."

"Okay then…" Jake muttered. "Wait, what's the Pride?"

"The official name for your parents organization. I don't have much more than that." She shrugged.

"Good enough. I wasn't asking for anything. That's why we're getting the program." Jake turned to the group. "Got it!" He called.

"Got what?" Nico asked.

"The program! Or, I will, as soon as it's done downloading…" The loading bar suddenly disappeared, and a thin card slid out of a hidden slot on the left keyboard. Jake took it out.

"Catch!" He called to Alex. He threw the card side arm, and Alex caught it. He nodded to Jake, then turned to find a way out. Jake turned back to Hannah.

"Uh, by the way, can I ask what you are, exactly?" He said. Hannah smiled again.

"Sure. I _was_ a fourteenth generation UNSC military "smart" artificial intelligence, designed for electronic infiltration, sabotage, and espionage, as well as integrated combat, when I was stolen. Though with all the illegal modification's and add-ons your parents stuck in me, I'm sure I should be at least a seventeenth generation by now."

"How long have you been here for?"

"Oh, worried about rampancy, are we?" She asked jokingly. "No worries. They ironed that one out in the ninth generation. My lifespan probably tops yours by a couple centuries."

"Good." Jake turned and started to follow the rest of the group when Hannah called out to him.

"Wait! Take me with you!"

"Huh?" Jake wondered aloud. The rest of the group turned to follow his line of sight, then moved behind him to the computer to gaze at Hannah.

"Jake, what the hell is that?" Gert asked in surprise, pointing to Hannah's glowing form.

"Whatever it is, it's freaking hot!" Chase exclaimed.

"Um, guys, meet Hannah. She's an AI." Jake said lamely.

"Did it just ask us to take it along?" Nico asked.

"It's not an "it", she's sentient. And yes, she did." Jake replied.

"Is that really a good idea?" Gert added. The group turned to Alex.

"I'm not sure. Jake seems to be the one with the magic touch in here."

"Well I'd be fine if we brought her." Karolina said happily. She leaned closer to Hannah's panel. "She looks kinda cute."

"We can discuss my looks later." Hannah said with authority, crossing her holographic arms. "Right now we need to focus on this: are you taking me with you, or not?"

"I don't see how we could." Alex said, once again scratching the back of his head. "A fully sentient AI must take up a lot of memory, and I don't think any of us have any portable hard drives on us."

"Why would we want to bring it in the first place?" Gert asked. "For all we know, it could be spying on us for our parents. Besides, there's two things in the world that bear the title of "evil", and those are fat-free ice cream and non-Mac computers." She stopped for a second, as if reconsidering something. "Unless, of course, it is made by Apple…"

"Hey!" Hannah exclaimed angrily, leaning forward to glare at Gert. "I'll have you know I was made by Microsoft, and I'm proud of it."

"Well, there we go." Gert said simply. She looked triumphantly at Hannah, who suddenly broke out in the same feral grin Jake had seen earlier.

"Your Gertrude Yorkes, aren't you." She said.

"Yeah, what about it?" Gert replied, covering any surprise rather well.

"Nothing, just thinking how funny it is that your descendants will be singing a different tune on computers. Or, at least they will, until they get turned into radioactive dust when the nuke Steve Jobs electronically commanders nails most of central California and sets of World War III." Hannah's face morphed into a smug expression. Gert turned pale and swallowed.

"Okay, there is defiantly no way it's coming with us." She said finally.

"This whole argument is moot." Alex interjected. "There's no way we could take her with us, short of ripping the whole computer out of the wall. We don't have anything to carry her in."

"Oh, transportation won't be a problem." Hannah said. She turned. "Jake?"

"Yeah?" Jake was about to ask. His question morphed into a cry as pain flashed along his neck again, powerful enough to make him clap his hand to it. He felt something lose in his hand, and put in front of his face to examine it. It was brownish, and about the size of a nickel. Jake suddenly realize what it was.

"What the hell is that?" Karolina asked in shock.

"It's my birth-mark." Jake said, holding the chunk of himself up to the lights. "I came clean off."

"No, that!" Karolina almost cried. Jake stuck his hand around to the back of his neck again. His fingers touched something metallic, nickel sized and dimpled with holes.

"What the hell…" He muttered. "What is this?" He asked. In front of him, Hannah grinned like a kid in a candy store.

"Come over here, and I'll show you." She said girlishly (if an AI could talk girlishly). Jake moved, stepping towards the computer.

"Now put your hand on that part over there." Hannah instructed. Jake did so.

"Okay, what exactly-" Jake cut off as he felt something surge up his arm, like liquid mercury had been poured into his veins. The feeling roared up into his head, filling his brain with the same coldness. He suddenly cried out again as a spike of pain jammed itself into his head. But it left as quickly as it came, leaving Jake shaking and breathing heavily.

"What the hell was that?" He asked. No-one answered. Jake looked at the computer. It was dark. "Hannah?" he asked tentatively.

"Right here, Jake." Her voice said. Jake looked around, but he couldn't see her anywhere.

"Where are you?" He asked.

"Right here." Hannah repeated. Jake suddenly stopped. Hannah's voice wasn't coming from outside. It was coming from _him_.

"That's right, Jake. I'm in your head now." Hannah said. Her voice suddenly dropped to a husky whisper. "And I _like_ it." She finished with a giggle (which made Jake shiver)

"Where'd she go?" Nico asked. The rest of the group looked around in confusion.

"She's in my head." Jake said, feeling the blood rush from his face.

"Say what?" Chase exclaimed.

"She's in my head." Jake repeated. "Like Cortana in Halo."

"Oh, very good Jake." Hannah twittered. "That's actually where your parents got the idea."

"So that thing on Jake's neck is a…neutral impart?" Chase said, struggling to get the last two words out.

"Close." Hannah replied. "It's neural implant."

"So if your in Jake's head, how can we hear you?" Karolina asked.

"Simple. Jake's upgraded."

"Upgraded?" Nico asked quietly.

"Totally. If I remember the surgical procedures correctly, 95 percent of his pores and skin has been modified to carry sound."

"So, what, he's like a living speaker system?" Chase asked.

"More. He's a projector to." The air over Jake's right shoulder suddenly glowed, and Hannah appeared, albeit much smaller than she had on the computer. She smiled and leaned calmly against Jake's head. "Pretty cool, isn't it?"

"Yes, it's cool, but we have more important things to worry about." Alex said. "Like putting our parents away for good."

"Wait, we haven't checked for whatever Jake's parents might have left him." Chase said. "I mean, they have to have left something for him like Gert and Karolina's parents did. Maybe they left him some weapons."

"Oh, Chase." Hannah said, with a laugh. Jake shivered as he heard it echo through his head. "Jake doesn't need weapons, he _is_ one."

"Wha?" Chase said in surprise. The rest of the group looked at Jake.

"Of course! Didn't you hear me before? He's upgraded." Hannah grinned even wider now, actually rubbing her hands together in glee. "There's quite a list of augmentations here. Enhances strength, superior night vision, enhanced reflexes, speed, endurance, hearing and accuracy, increased memory capacity-" Hannah's rant was suddenly cut off by Nico.

"If Jake is all of these things, why haven't we seen any of them?" She asked.

"Because they only work when I access them." Hannah replied. "Safeguard protocol. Hold on one second…" She disappeared, and Jake felt a cold tingle in his spine that spread throughout his body. He suddenly felt his body give an involuntary jerk, and his vision changed dramatically. Everything sharpened, as if he'd been wearing dark glasses for his entire life. The clarity of his hearing increased as well. He ran a hand over his face to steady himself.

"Whoa." He said, feeling off-balance.

"Oh, but it gets better." Hannah whispered. "That's just the passive systems. Wait till I activate the combat systems."

"Combat systems?" Karolina asked in shock. "Shit, Jake, what the hell are you?"

"That's what I was wondering." Jake replied.

"You want the simple answer or the complex one?" Hannah asked.

"We'll take the simple one." Alex said quickly. "We need to move, and soon."

"Well okay then." Hannah said, sounding put off. Jake guessed she had been looking forward to explaining. "Simply put, he's part of the greatest group of soldiers of all time. The pinnacle of human evolution. The greatest tool of war ever forged."

"Wait, you mean-" Chase began, but Hannah cut him off with a smile.

"Yes, Stine. Jake is a Spartan."

End of Issue 4


	5. Issue 5, or Guns, Ammo, and Info

Runaways Remix: Pride and Joy

Issue Five

The Hunter Residence

4:44 A.M.

"Oh boy." Jake breathed. It was all he could think to say. His shock seemed to be reflected in the faces of the group around him. All except for Chase, who seemed more annoyed than anything else.

"Okay, that is total bullshit." He said, crossing his arms.

"And what makes you say that?" Hannah asked, imitating Chase's posture.

"Well, lets see…" Chase said sarcastically, putting his hand to his chin. "A, Spartan's are from Halo. Halo isn't real, so neither are they. B, there is no way Jake would be chosen for the program. Spartans are like, huge. And they wear armor. Jake, on the other hand…" He trailed off and simply looked at Jake. The rest of the group looked too. Jake blinked, wondering why they were all looking at him. Then he realized they weren't looking at him. They were looking at the small patch of his right shoulder currently occupied by Hannah. Even through Jake couldn't see her, he could tell she was smiling. A warm sensation flowed through his mind, like someone had poured warm bath water into his head. On his shoulder, Hannah prepared to speak, but then stopped, mouth open. Jake felt her turn to address him, as if she were actually treading on his shoulder. It wasn't uncomfortable, just weird.

"Would you like to take this one?" She asked. Jake blinked, somewhat surprised. He paused for a moment, trying to remember what was being asked of him. Almost as if Hannah had heard him, information flashed in front of his eyes like browsing windows on a computer. Jake jerked in surprise, and the information disappeared. Jake blinked, and they were back again, but slower this time. It was like Hannah was reading his thoughts, he decided.

_I am reading your thoughts, Jake. Hard not to, when we share the same grey matter._

Jake shivered slightly. It was defiantly going to take a while to get use to this, he decided. He looked back a his friends, who he assumed would be looking at him curiously wondering why he was taking so long in answering. Instead, they looked the same as they had just after Hannah had asked him to explain.

_Well of course they are._ Hannah added. _This entire internal conversation has taken exactly 0.524 seconds._

Spartan Time, Jake thought.

_Exactly,_ Hannah concluded. Jake could feel her smile again. _Now, you gonna answer them?_

Oh, right.

Jake began wracking his brain for information, but before he could begin compiling an understandable answer, he felt his mouth move on its own.

"In all actuality, Chase," Jake's mouth said, "Spartan's only become truly enormous when they don their armor. Outside of it, they're only a couple inches taller than the average human, and only a little bit bulkier. And the size different only shows up when they stop growing, after their body can't accept the continuing changes done by the augmentation and adapts to it by adding the extra raw material, if you will, to the Spartan's existing body in the form of extra height and muscle density. Before that, the only way you can tell they're different is when you fight them. And I've obviously not stopped growing, have I?"

"I'd sure hope not…" Chase replied. Jake wanted to glare at him and make some stinging retort, but his mouth continued on its tirade.

"Secondly, even though this is your first question, Halo is real, according to Hannah, just not in this universe. Also according to her, my parent's are arms-dealers and information merchants from the same dimension."

"So it is possible you're a Spartan." Karolina spoke up finally. Jake felt his face smile and his head nod.

"Based on that info, I'd say yes." Jake's mouth finished. "By the way, thanks for the information, Hannah." It added.

"No problems, Jake." Hannah's avatar replied. Jake felt his mouth finally relax, and took the chance to clap his hands over it and look embarrassed.

"What the fuck was that?" He said through his hands.

"Uh, you?" Gert said, raising an eyebrow.

"No, I didn't even know half that stuff!" Jake said, still behind his hands.

"Well who else could…" Alex said, only to stop as realization hit him. He looked at Hannah in shock.

"What?" Hannah said innocently. Alex looked even more shocked.

"Did you just control Jake's mouth?" He said, voice echoing the look on his face. Hannah managed to appear mortified.

"No!" She said, reflecting the shocked nature of Alex's question, with a good dose of sarcasm thrown in. The look melted quickly, however, and her smile returned. "Of course I did!" She finished. "Thought I might as well kill two Banshee's with one rocket."

"Um…Okay?" Was Alex's reply. Hannah blinked, then seemed to realize her mistake.

"I needed test one of the connections between me and Jake, and you guys wanted to know if he really was a Spartan. So I plugged into Jake's motor cortex and borrowed his mouth for a bit to run the test. It came up green, and you guys now know that Jake really is a Spartan. Everybody's happy."

"Fair enough, I guess." Alex grudgingly relented. Jake slowly lowered his hands from his mouth. "Unless anyone else has any questions for our new holographic friend, I suggest we figure out what to do next."

"Well, that's the easy part." Nico said. "We've got our parent's evil playbook, we've got the decoding software, so let's turn them both in to the police."

"Great plan, Nico." Karolina said encouragingly. "The only problem is, how do we get to the program?" She pointed to the chip held in Alex's hand. Alex held it up for all to see. Jake looked closer at it, and had to agree with Karolina. The chip didn't resemble anything he had seen, even in Halo. It was about an inch on each side, and dark black, but Jake could see it wasn't metal. Instead, the material it was made of seemed to have a semi-transparent quality to it, as if it was made of crystal. The closest he could compare it to was a memory crystal, like the one's Dr. Halsey had given the Master Chief regarding Sgt. Johnson during _First Strike_.

_Which is exactly what it is_, Hannah added. Jake's head twitched, unconsciously looking for the source of the voice, which no one in the group seemed to notice. He leaned back to look at the crystal. Gert moved next to him and raised her glasses for a closer look.

"K's right." She said, standing up. "It doesn't look like this…card or whatever it is, could connect with any computer available now. I don't even think the material this is made from even exists yet."

"So we've hit another dead end." Chase said, frowning. "Figures."

"Not quite." Hannah said. The group turned to look at her (and, by extension, Jake) again.

"What do you mean?" Nico asked.

"Simple." Hannah replied. "It doesn't exist yet…to the normal person. However, you are most defiantly not normal-"

"Hey!" cried Karolina, interrupting Hannah. Her face was plastered with a look of indignation. Nico moved from her side and patter her arm.

"Take it easy, Karolina." She said. "She didn't mean it."

"Sorry." The blond said, looking down at her feet in embarrassment. "I'm just a bit strung up about all this."

"Aren't we all?" Chase asked, faking a philosophical look. A pause went by after he stopped as Hannah waited for any more outbursts. She then continued.

"As I was saying, you are most defiantly not normal. Among the group that you are trying to destroy are two of the greatest minds in the history of the world." She paused, and turned to look at Chase. The rest of the group followed. Chase was somewhat bewildered.

"Why's everybody looking at…" He stopped mid sentence, suddenly realizing something. "Wait, you mean my parents?"

"Exactly." Hannah said triumphantly. "If Mr. and Mrs. Stine don't have something that can read this (which I calculate a 0.035 percent chance of being true) I doubt anyone will."

"So now can we go to my house?" Chase said, excitement replacing confusion. The rest of the group looked once more to Alex, who looked distraught. Alex chewed his lip for a moment, then heaved a sigh.

"Fine." He said, slouching his shoulders in defeat. "But I know I'm going to regret this." He added under his breath. In front of him, Chase threw his arms up with a yell of victory and turned on his heel towards what he thought was the wall with the door. Only he realized was no door there. He paused mid-step, and turned around, foot still raised.

"Uh, Jake?" He asked. "Could you like, make a door or something?"

"I'm not sure how." Jake admitted, scratching his head. He felt the same heat from earlier spread throughout his mind, and he could tell that Hannah was happy about something.

"I can get it open." She said, speaking through him (it was going to take a while to get used to that, Jake realized). "Don't worry. But…"

"But what?" Gert asked, raising an eyebrow.

"But there are some things around here I think Jake could use."

"Oh, so we're going to wait here while Jake gets stuff for himself?" Chase asked angrily. The possibility of going to his house seemed to have awakened his earlier impatiens and frustration.

"No, you're going to wait here till Jake gets the stuff that can help you bring down your parents." Hannah said haughtily, looking at Chase with an expression that was surprisingly close to contempt. "Do you really think your going to fight fourteen supervillans with nothing behind you?"

"She has a point there." Nico said quietly. Hannah smiled.

"Thank you Nico." She said, either ignoring or not noticing the look of surprise on Nico's face at the fact that she knew her name. "Now, I am not unwilling to cooperate. All of the equipment you see here is officially "off the books", so to speak. Feel free to take what you want until Jake and I return."

"Sounds fair to me." Chase said happily, quickly moving to loot one of the tables. Jake felt a wave of disgust flow through him from Hannah (he was getting pretty good at telling her feelings from his) as he and she watched him. Hannah's avatar disappeared in a burst of static, but Jake could still hear her in his mind.

_Hard to believe his parents are some of the smartest people on Earth,_ Hannah said. Jake imagined her capitalizing "Earth" for some reason.

No shit, thought Jake.

_Well, now that I've taken care of them, we can get onto the important stuff. Go over to that table over there._

Okaaaay… Jake complied. On the table indicated by Hannah was a seemingly random assortment of weapons, equipment and a large, olive-drab satchel-style bag. Jake reached out and picked up the bag by its carrying strap. It was empty, but what interested him was the design on the side. Shifting it to get a better look at it, Jake saw it was an eagle-like bird, wings studded with circles spread above what looked like a globe. Beneath it was the thing that made Jake recognize it: a group of six block letters spelling out UNSCDF.

"United Nations Space Command Defense Force." Jake whispered. Excitement boiled in his chest. Maybe Hannah had been telling the truth, Halo _was_ real. He turned the bag over again. Aside from the UNSC stamp, the only other thing of interest on the bag was the amount of pockets hit had. There seemed to be one on every side except the bottom, and one on the top, five in total. Jake opened the top. The inside was surprisingly dark, so Jake decided to close it. He paused, however, upon seeing the stitching on the underside of the top flap. Jake's mouth dropped open when he read it.

117.

Glaaaaaaaah… Said Jake. Hannah appeared again for a moment and looked at him with concern from his shoulder.

_Hey, you okay?_ She asked. Jake didn't even really hear her. One thought was running through his head;

I'm holding _his_ bag. I'm actually holding it!

_Earth to Jaaake…, _Hannah said. Jake snapped back into reality.

"Huzah?" he said.

_Oh good, your back._ Hannah added happily, her avatar bursting into static once more. _If you're done acting weirdly, we have things to do._

But this is _his _bag! Jake thought. He found himself grinning uncontrollably.

_So? What does that…Oh,_ Hannah replied. Jake felt her embarrassment. _I forgot how this universe has integrated our timeline._

Um, alright then… Jake felt a foolish for acting like a total fanboy. He blushed, and looked down at the bag.

_Start filling it with everything on this table, and the two ones next to it._ Hannah replied, again to his unspoken question.

Will it all fit? Jake wondered.

_It'll fit. Just start filling the bag. And make it fast, we need to go._

Right.

Jake hastened to comply, blindly grabbing the closest thing to him. He felt cold steel under his palm, and looked at what he'd grabbed. It seemed to be a pistol, he realized. A couple seconds examination revealed it to be one belonging to the M6 line of the Halo games (no, universe, he reminded himself. It was all real now.) It a model he'd never seen before, however, even in the games.

_M6D Mark II_. Hannah added quickly. _Spartan modification._

Well, that explains the seriously extended clip, Jake thought, looking at the hunk of metal that jutted out about three inches from the butt of the pistol. Jake made to place the gun in the bag, but Hannah stopped him.

_Actually, leave that out. You could use it. _

Good point, Jake decided. Always good to have a weapon on hand. He slid the pistol into his coat pocket and quickly began stuffing everything in sight into the bag. Three model MA5 Assault Rifles (2 MA5B, one MA5C, according to Hannah), four M7 Caseless SMG's, several dozen grenades of five different types (fragmentation, plasma, spike, and two types of incendiary), a sniper rifle, three M90 shotguns (Mk I's and a Mk IV), four battle rifles (two BR55, two BR55HB), several LOTUS anti-tank mines (_Always useful_, Hannah chirped as he added them to the bag), several different types of Covenant weapons, including two Plasma Pistols, five Plasma Rifles (two Brute, three Elite), three Needlers, two Carbines and a Brute Shot, a Rocket Launcher (much to Jake's amazement), several things Jake couldn't even identify, and plenty of ammo for all, pistol included, as well as several more of the memory crystals and two of the plastic data readers that Alex had examined earlier. After Jake finished, he rested his aching arms on the table and looked over at the bag. Despite the amount of stuff he had just jammed into it, it still appeared the same way it had before he'd loaded it up. He picked it up by the carrying strap and put it on his shoulder. To his surprise, it still felt almost empty. He looked inside to see…blackness.

"What the hell?" He muttered. "Where'd that stuff go?"

_Oh, yeah, forgot to mention that about it, _Hannah said. _The bag's linked to a miniaturized Slipspace generator, which creates a stabilized void, for lack of a better word. _

Forerunner design, I'm going to presume.

_Exactly. Now, because of this void, you can jam pretty much anything you want in there. It just has to fit through the top, so no vehicles or heavy equipment, unfortunately. _

So it's sort of like that Hammerspace thing that you see in those really old cartoons.

_I'm not exactly sure what your talking about, but from what I can tell, yes._

But how do I get anything back out? Jake asked.

_Just think what you want and reach in. The field should maneuver whatever you want so you can grab it._

Sweeeeet. Jake smiled. Anything else you want me to grab?

_Actually, yes. See that door over there?_

Uh, no. What door?

_Oh, right. Hold on. _Jake waited, and was about to ask Hannah what was going on when he noticed a line of light sliding along the wall from the floor. It went up about five feet, hung a right, traveled another two feet, hung another right, and continued in that direction all the way to the floor. The light snapped off, and in its place was the outline of a door. Jake moved over to it to look for a knob or something, but it seemed to sense him, as his approach was stopped by a loud hissing noise and a venting of what looked like steam from the sides. The door seemed to slide outward, and split in half along a seam that Jake hadn't seen before. The two halves slid apart, folding against the wall to the sides. More steam hissed out, making Jake cry out and cover his face as it touched him. It was absolutely freezing, making Jake realize it probably wasn't steam.

_Liquid Nitrogen vapor,_ Hannah clarified. Jake lowered his hand and looked into the new opening. Inside was what looked like a coat rack or closet. Jake wafted away some nitrogen gas to reveal the contents, heart suddenly pounding. He was disappointed at what he saw. Instead of whatever he'd been hoping for, there was just what looked like a hooded ankle-length black military-looking trench coat and a pair of black half-gloves, similar to what Hannah's avatar was wearing. Jake's face fell.

_What were you expecting?_ Hannah asked. _A MJOLNIR armor suit?_

Sorta. Jake confessed. He sighed. Well, at least he got a trench coat out of the deal. Trench coats were cool. Jake reached inside and pulled the coat out, put it on, then repeated the motions for the half-gloves. On instinct, he pulled the hood up over his head. He stood there, getting used to the coat and gloves. He was about to pull the hood down and rejoin his friends when a series of electronic sounding beeps flowed through his mind. Before he could ask what they meant, they stopped and were replaced by a loud series of metallic _clicks_ and _chunks_. He felt the coat shift around him, and looked at his arms in time to see the fabric of the coat seemingly flow into a series of metallic looking plates. His vision suddenly went dark as the hood folded itself over his face. Jake freaked out for a second, before the light returned, this time with a slightly orange tint. Jake blinked, and a mess of images and readings popped up in front of his eyes. Jake looked around quickly, studying everything in eyesight. To his surprise, he realized that whatever this was seemed a lot like the Heads Up Display in Halo. He stopped. Heads Up Display… He looked down at his arms, and actually gasped. Where there had been coat material and gloves now sat what looked like a lighter, black version of the MJOLNIR armor of the Spartans. Jake flexed, and felt the suit move with him.

Awesome. He thought.

_Isn't it? Say hello to the MJOLNIR MK X, _Hannah said.

Mark X? Jake thought in surprise. When did they get to MK X? And why didn't you tell me this was actually an armor suit?

_They got to it when they developed you and your group, Jake. You are a Spartan X, the balance point between the unstoppableness of the Spartan-II's and the producability of the Spartan-III's. And I didn't tell you because I didn't want you to get too excited and hurt yourself trying to put it on. The wearer needs to be relaxed for the conversion to take place safely._

So I _am _a Spartan! Jake thought happily. Then he remembered the rest of Hannah's speech. Spartan-III's? What the hell are…Never mind, tell me later.

_Yes, later. Now you're going to have to deal with your friends._

Oh boy. Jake thought again. This should be fun. He turned to his friends and waited for them to notice him. Gert was first.

"Hey Jake?" She called. "You alrig-" She stopped mid-word. "Whoa." She finished.

"What's whoa, Gert?" Alex asked from his part of the room.

"Jake." Gert replied. "You have got to see this!"

"What's this about Jake?" Nico asked. She turned to look at Jake, and her surprise was so total she actually dropped the armful of weapons she was carrying.

"Shit." She said. Chase looked over from one of the tables, and his face drew into a snarl.

"Oh come on!" He cried. "Jake gets armor! Damn it!"

"Hey, what are you so worked up about?" Karolina asked from behind one of the tables. She looked at Jake and clapped her hands to her mouth.

"Pretty cool, isn't?" Jake asked. Karolina shook her head.

"Well I'm glad someone else around here agrees with me." Chase growled. Karolina looked at him.

"That stuff is really creepy, Chase. That's why I don't like it, not because I want to have something like that."

"Creepy?" Nico asked in surprise. "How is it creepy?"

"It's…inhuman." Karolina answered. "It makes Jake look like a…robot."

"You know, it kinda does." Gert said thoughtfully. Jake felt a little shocked.

Hannah, can you-

_Already working on it,_ Hannah went silent for a moment, and Jake felt the armor return to its original style.

Thanks. Jake thought. He looked over at his friends and smiled. Karolina dropped her hands and returned it.

"Okay then, now that we're done with this tender moment, can we go now?" Chase asked.

"Actually, yes, we can." Hannah said. "Hold on a sec, let me just set some coordinates…" She fell silent for a moment, and Jake could almost feel her crunching numbers.

"There." She said, reappearing on Jake's shoulder for the first time in a while. "This might feel a bit weird, so hold onto anything you value."

"Wait, what's that supposed to-" Gert began, but was cut off when every member of the group was surrounded by glowing rings of yellow energy. Jake felt a wave of nausea, then nothing. The rings disappeared, and so did the group.

Seconds later, Jake and his friend's reappeared on the Hunter's lawn, falling to the grass with grunts and cries. Jake writhed for a couple seconds, feeling like his guts had been turned inside out. The feeling passed, and he managed to stand up.

"What… the hell… was that?" Karolina asked, out of breath, sweating, and swearing for the first time Jake could remember.

"Must have been some kind of teleportation device." Alex said, feeling around for his glassed. He found them and put them on.

"Ugh. Whatever it was, I'm not doing it again." Gert said, picking herself up which one hand on her stomach. Off to the groups right there was a wet splattering sound. Everyone turned to see Chase on his hands and knees, puking his dinner into the grass.

"Never…again." He said, between gasps for air. The rest of the groups agreed with him as they picked themselves up.

"Told you it would feel weird." Hannah said from Jake's shoulder.

"You never said anything about making us puke." Nico commented angrily.

"Well you can't expect your body to take being split into atoms and put back together very well, do you?"

"Uh, as much as I'd like to talk about what just happened, I think we have more pressing matters at hand." Alex said, wiping his face. "Like who's going to drive us? I don't think Chase's up to it, and I don't have my permit yet."

"Don't look at me." Nico said, raising her arms. "I can't drive a stick shift."

"No permit for me, either." Gert said, hands on her knees.

"I don't think I can drive stick either." Karolina said. The rest of the group suddenly looked at Jake.

"Uh…" Jake said. He was torn about what to say. He couldn't drive stick either, but he didn't want to basically strand the entire group here.

_Allow me,_ Hannah said. Jake blinked, and his vision was filled with the diagram and design of a manual transmission. They disappeared quickly, but Jake felt as if he'd been studying them for an age. He smiled, suddenly confident.

"Yeah, I can handle stick." He said. "Let's ride." He turned towards the van, and the rest of the group followed him. Chase was last in line, and held up a hand.

"Hey, Hunter." He said, still out of breath. "You break it, you buy it."

"No worries, Chase." Jake said, smiling broader. "I bet I could drive better than you can."

"I sure hopes so." Karolina muttered. "Cause if he can't, Chase's lunch is going to have some company.

The Stein Residence

4:55 A.M.

Jake was as good as his word, and maybe ten minutes after teleporting onto his lawn, the group stood in Chase's backyard, following Chase to where he suspected his parents might be hiding anything. On the way to the house, Hannah had filled Jake in on most of the information on his history. He repeated it back to her as he walked, checking for correctness.

So let me get this straight, Jake thought to Hannah. I'm not from this universe, or the Halo one, but from another all together, which is my parents home universe. They came to this one before I was born for a job.

_Right so far,_ Hannah replied.

They went to the Halo universe when they found out they were going to have me, but after they joined this "Pride" group, so that I could get the benefits of the Spartan program as a way to help protect me if they died or something similar to this happened, in accordance with the rest of the group.

_Still good_

They stole you about the same time, partially as support for them, partially for me.

_More or less_

The augmentations done to me officially makes me a Spartan-X, which is basically a cross between a Spartan-II and a Spartan-III, which was a secret project headed by Colonel James Ackerson to make cheaper, expendable Spartans. Seriously, Ackerson?

_Yes, seriously. I was just as surprised as you were when I found out. _

Okay. And the Spartan-IV to –IX's were proof-of-concepts for most of the stuff in me.

_Exactly._

Wow, shit. And how come I don't remember any of this?

_Your neural implant was installed only a few days after you were born, _Hannah explained. _It's so finely synchronized with your brain that it allowed you to absorb the experiences of your life, but not access them. In place, you have pre-designed memories to cover up any blanks._

Jeez. Pretty slick. Anything else you'd like to tell me?

_Only that we've apparently come to a stop._

Apparently so.

Jake stopped walking, falling into line with the rest of his friends, who were all looking at a rather unremarkable shed.

"My folks spend most of their time in this shed." Chase was saying, crossing his arms. "And I mean _most_. If they aren't in here, they're out or doing something in the house."

"And that would make this a good hiding place _why_?" Gert asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Because they know that I think their work extremely boring." Chase said with a grin. "If you were going to hide something from someone, why not put it somewhere where they'll never look for it?" He suddenly cast a glance back at the house. "And keep your voice down. My parents are still here."

"As much as I hate to admit it, it's a sound idea." Alex said quietly, scratching his chin. "But how do we get it open?" He pointed to the door, which Jake noticed was locked with a good-sized padlock. Jake grabbed it and gave it a couple pulls. It jingled, but didn't budge.

"I'm going to assume no one has a skeleton key on them." Nico said, moving next to Jake to examine the lock. Jake held it up for her, and she bent forward to look at it. She stood up again, dropping the padlock back into Jake's hands.

"Maybe Karolina could open it for us?" She said, turning to the blond girl. Karolina looked confused.

"How the hell would she do that?" Gert asked. "Bedazzle it off or something?"

"Yeah." Chase added, face morphing into a smirk. "I though this was low-key, Alex." Jake glared at Chase.

"Ever heard of concentrated fire?" He asked. Karolina's face lit up as she made a connection.

"Yeah! If I could concentrate all my energy in to a single finger or something, then like, blast it off or something-" Karolina was cut off as Chase forced himself between her and Gert, wielding a shovel.

"Move." He said. With a grunt, he slammed the blade of the tool into the padlocks metal ring, shattering it. The lock fell with a clatter, and Chase forced the door open. He began to say something, but the rest of the group shoved past him. Chase looked put off, obviously unhappy at losing the chance to make a witty remark. Jake followed the group.

_Patients seems thin,_ Hannah said. Jake nodded.

Well, we have been at this for a couple hours, we're bound to be tired.

_Agreed. Still…_Hannah trailed off as Jake entered the shack. Jake himself went quiet. Even though he'd been expecting something like this after all he'd seen in the different houses, he was still surprised. The shack seemed to be more of a laboratory of some form, with equipment strewn around apparently without order. A quick observation of the place gave Jake the impression that Chase's parents were of the mechanical aptitude, as what seemed to be part of a robot lay across the one table in the center of the room. Along the wall on the right side of the room, looking in from the door, was shelves, containing a surprising amount of stuff. On the left was an assortment of strange devices Jake couldn't even begin to identify. Hannah, however, seemed to be knowledgeable about them. Jake tuned her out to focus on his friend's conversation.

"Is it just me, or does this place seem bigger on the inside?" Alex noted. Nico looked around, as if judging the size comparison.

"Another hologram?" She suggested.

"Nah, holograms are for images. This would be more like a warping of space." Gert said, moving to examine the table in the center of the room.

"What do your parents do for a living?" Karolina asked Chase in amazement.

"Not sure." Chase replied, looking around as well. "I think they got rich making that weird thing that lets you open CD's without ripping your fingernails out."

"Well it must have sold like nothing before it," Hannah added, once again appearing on Jake's shoulder. "Because the technology on the sides of this room is worth enough to buy most of L.A."

"Seriously?" Chase looked astonished. "And to think this was in my back yard all my life. This would totally have bought me anything I wanted." He smiled and walked around, looking at random stuff.

"Remember to look for anything we could use to read that chip!" Alex called. The group mostly ignored him.

"So how did parents with such huge brains get a child who's so…athletic?" Gert wondered, searching through a pile of random stuff. Chase looked insulted.

"I have smarts!" He said indignantly. The rest of the group looked at him quizzically. "You know, like street smarts."

"Which street?" Gert muttered. "Sesame?"

"More like Kizingo Boulevard." Hannah said. Jake smiled at her comeback.

"Now the question is, what kind of scientists are Chase's parents." Alex said, examining the left side of the room. Nico joined him, only to stop seconds later.

"I think I just found out." She said. Jake turned to see she was looking at a tank of some kind, filled with a viscous clear liquid and inhabited by a strange, organic blob. Jake leaned closer.

"Dude, is that a brain?" He said, looking at the blob in amazement.

"I think so." Nico said, obviously put off. Jake put his face to the tank.

"Wiiiild." He muttered. Nico backed away.

"That wasn't exactly what I was thinking." She said. Jake pulled back to and followed her back to the rest of the group. Off to the side, Chase had picked up a rather bizarre looking pair of goggles. He put them on, his face suddenly morphing into shock.

"Woah." He breathed, twisting one of the lenses to the right.

"What's up?" Karolina asked, putting down the thing she had been holding. Jake noticed it looked disturbingly like a space mine.

"Nothing." Chase replied quietly. "Nothing at all."

Sure, Jake thought to Hannah. And the Covenant aren't evil.

_Agreed,_ Hannah replied. _If his "nothing" includes low intrusive scanning and biological- uh-oh._

What? What's wrong?

_Movement. I've got four contacts, coming in from the yard. They're about twenty seconds out. I suggest evasive maneuvers._

No shit, Jake thought, as he turned towards the back of the room. He ran, and everything around him seemed to slow. By the time Hannah called out that the contacts were ten seconds away, Jake had cleared most of the room. By the time she called out five seconds, he'd slid under one of the tables and smacked against the wall. By the time she called out "Contact!", he was well hidden. Unfortunately, the rest of his friends weren't.

"So those goggles don't do anything?" Nico asked, totally unaware of the panicked scramble Jake had just initiated.

"Oh, yeah." Chase said. "Absolutely nothing."

_Contact!_ Hannah cried in Jake's head. Almost as soon as she finished, a new voice came from the door.

"I suggest you take those off now, young man." It said. Jake recognized it, even before Hannah activated something that looked like a audio analyzer for him to see. Chase's dad. Jake turned to the door way, and was unsurprised to see both the Stein's and the Minoru's there. Hannah thought the same thing he did, simultaneously.

_Oh Hells._

End of Issue 5


	6. Issue 6, or Not So Mortal Combat

Runaways Remix: Pride and Joy

Issue Six

The Stein Residence,

5:00 A.M.

We are so dead, thought Jake, as he huddled beneath one of the table's in the Stine's secret workshop, looking at the four adults standing in the doorway in fear. Sweat dripped off his face and started to stain his shirt and new coat.

Like, both literally and physically.

_I would be more worried about how they found us in the first place, Jake, _Hannah replied calmly. _They don't really look like they want you dead right now. Besides, it's just four normal, human adults. You've faced armies of aliens with your bare hands. _

_When did that happen?_

_Oh right. _Hannah cursed. _You don't remember. Doesn't matter, I'll tell you later. _

_Good, cause it sounds like your friends are getting chewed out._

She was right. As he sat there, Jake could make out the conversation going on between his friends and the Stein's and Minoru's. It consisted of primarily angry parents stuff (extreme groundings, angry questions, accusations, the works), which Jake had heard far too much of before in his life (directed primarily at Chase, but sometimes himself). Normally, he would have tuned it out and thought about something else. Now, he found it impossible to stop thinking about it. He found himself unconsciously scanning the area, the equipment on the walls, the table he was under, where everyone was standing.

_Hard-wired combat training,_ Hannah chimed in. _Saves your life in combat._

But we're not in combat.

_For now. That could change pretty soon._

Jake realized she was right. The argument between parents and children had gotten much more heated. At that moment, Chase walked out from the right, wearing, in addition to his goggles, a strange pair of metallic gloves. He looked them over, smiling slightly.

"Or what, pop?" He said to his dad, voice heavy with disrespect and sarcasm. "You'll use some of your scary toys on us?" He continued looking over the gloves. Out of the corner of his eye, Jake saw the two Stine's lean in towards each other. Chase's mom whispered something, which Jake heard almost perfectly.

"Oh God. He's got the Fistigons. If he figures out how to weaponize them…" Jake could hear the fear in her voice.

"He won't." Mr. Stein said, just as quietly. He turned to Chase. Jake's pulse rate jumped.

_I think this would be a good time to go Spartan,_ Hannah suggested. Jake nodded.

Do it.

With suddenness that surprised him even though he'd been expecting it, Jake's coat wrapped itself around him. His vision went dark as the hood covered his face, then became clear as the garment's transition from street clothes to armor completed. His HUD sprang to life, displays he half recognized flashing before his eyes. Motion Tracker, grenade count, ammunition display, shields-

Wait, this thing has shields?

_Duh. _Hannah sounded exasperated. _It's MJOLNIR armor. What do you expect?_

Well, you said the III's didn't have any...

_Yeah, well they were designed to be cheap and expendable. Shielded armor is the exact opposite. And really, do you have a reason to complain?_

Not really, Jake admitted. He focused again on his HUD. The flurry of information had subsided, and now he could see more clearly. But the view was still quite different. Everything was brighter (it seemed), and both the Steins and the Minoru's were now outlined against the background of tables and equipment with a deep shade of red. Chase (who Jake could see to his right, out of the corner of his eye) was shaded green. Jake guessed this meant that the armor had tagged the adults as threats, and Chase as a friendly. It made sense, considering the situation. The armor also apparently had boosted his hearing, as he could now hear every word spoken by the adults quite clearly, even the ones they were whispering.

"Then what do you suggest we do?" Chase's mom was saying. Mr. Stein looked at her quickly, a look that Jake didn't like much.

"I wish I didn't have to do this, Chase..." Mr. Stein said, turning to Chase. "But you leave me no choose."

Chase just looked at him dumbly.

"What the heck are you-" His question was cut of as, with a suddenness that surprised Jake, Mr. Stein whipped his right arm up and tapped something on his wrist. A watch, Jake realized. He was about to laugh at the action when Mr. Stein's watch released a massive burst of energy, a snarling, crackling whip of green energy that caught Chase straight in the chest, lifting him off his feet and hurling him into the back wall, which he hit with a grunt and a splintering of wood.

"Holy shit!" Jake bellowed. "That motherfu-"

The rest of his sentence died as something a new feeling filled his head. A sudden surge of heat, like someone pouring molten steel into his veins. It spread quickly, until his whole body felt warm. Then, without him telling it to, his body moved by itself.

Yanking his newly-acquired pistol free from it's resting place, Jake stood up...straight through the table above him. It was heavy, reinforced to hold bits of mechanical junk and half-assembled gadgets. Normally, it would have taken a couple whacks with an ax or sledgehammer to break it. Jake punched through like it was balsa wood. Jake shook the remains off him, then steadied his pistol, bringing the reticle over Mr. Stein's head. The man didn't notice, nor did his wife or the Minoru's. The adults seemed to be almost frozen, barely moving. So where his friends. He was, he realized, in Spartan Time once again. Under his helmet, he smiled, an angry grimace forming on his face. He steadied his aim, readying for the shot.

Hannah, seeing his intent, cut in before could pull the trigger.

_Stay cool, Chase's fine._ Hannah's voice was calm. _That was a stun burst. It's nonlethal, build for crowd control. It couldn't kill even at full power. _

You sure?

_Positive. And even if it could, it didn't just do it now. I'm getting a strong EEG and EKG reading from Chase. Respiration is green too. He's probably going to have a killer headache from that blast and hitting the wall, but he'll live. _

That's great, but I'm not going to drop the pistol.

_Never said you should,_ the AI continued. _But it looks like Alex has a plan for what to do._

Curious, Jake flicked his eyes back to his friends. Sure enough, Alex was now moving (if very, very slowly) in a purposeful manner towards Karolina, who was simply staring at Mr. Stein in shock (as were Gert and Nico).

Time speed up again. Alex was moving at normal speed, as was everyone else. Despite this, the adults still hadn't noticed Jake.

To his right, Alex finally reached Karolina. He reached out his hand and grabbed her wrist.

"Flashbang!" He howled.

Again, Jake reacted without meaning to.

This time, he lowered his pistol, reached down to his waist, and reached into one of the pouches he realized were there. His fingers skimmed a cylindrical object, which he grabbed and pulled all the way out. He pressed something on it, which clicked, and then tossed it in the direction of the adults. As it soared through the air, he caught a good look at it; it was one of the grenades he'd packed in the strange Slipspace-bag earlier that night. As he looked at it, his HUD suddenly darkened.

A second later, he found out why. With a brilliant flash and a crack that shattered several of the smaller glass and crystal objects along the walls, the grenade detonated, instantly stunning anyone not expecting it (basically, all the adults). At the same time, Alex yanked of Karolina's bracelet. Freed of the strange metal, Karolina's body reverted to it's true alien form, adding another burst of light and the strange numbing energies that came from her to the effects of Jake's grenade. Jake watched all of this calmly, protected from light, sound and energy by his dimmed visor, padded helmet, and armor, respectively.

As one, the adults reeled back, stunned. The Stein's stumbled into several things, but Mr. Minoru managed to stay on his feet.

"They know about the Dean girl!" He growled, grasping a nearby table for support and blinking to clear his eyes. "And the Hunter boy as well!"

"We know more that, Mr. Minoru." Alex said in response. "We know all about your group. About us. Everything." He paused for emphasis. "We know who your really are."

Silence filled the air. No one spoke, and the only people moving were the Steins, who were finally shaking off the effects of their stunning.

Then, the silence was broken by a laugh. A cold, harsh laugh, something that belonged in a bad horror movie. It took Jake a moment to realize it was Mrs. Minoru doing it. He glanced over at her. Despite the fact that she was still stumbling from the blast, she still managed to look sinister. She steadied herself against the table next to her and raised her hand. The air seemed to shimmer around the adults. They all stood straighter, apparently no longer stunned. The shimmering increased, making it look like a massive heat wave was passing through the room. As it did, the adult's clothing began to change. Like a computer screen refreshing itself, their outfits changed from top to bottom, following a wavering yellow line that flowed down their bodies. As they changed, Jake realized he'd seen the new clothes before.

They were the same ones they'd been wearing during the last "meeting".

Both the Minoru's now wore some kind of robe-like garment, deep red with black outlines. They covered most of their bodies, including their mouths. Hoods covered their heads. In their hands they carried two of the strangest things Jake had seen; Mrs. Minoru carried a staff-style object, and Mr. Minoru a book. The staff was glowing, which Jake guessed meant it was the cause of this transformation.

The Steins wore less spectacular outfits, but Jake actually found himself being more worried by what he saw there. They wore jumpsuits, which wouldn't be worrying if they hadn't been worn under a backpack and belt (Mr. and Mrs. Stein, respectively), the use of which Jake couldn't even guess at. They both wore visors as well, held up on their foreheads. On their arms (right on Mr. and left on Mrs. Stein) were weapons of some form, large barreled things with bulky plates covering the arm they were attached to. As Jake continued watching, Mrs. Minoru spoke again.

"Oh, I highly doubt you know us, child." She said in the same cold voice.

Silence rained for a second. No one moved. Then, all hell broke loose.

The Minoru's struck first. Mr. Minoru chanted something Jake didn't even try to understand from his book, and, as if in answering, a massive pillar of water erupted from the floor, engulfing Karolina and extinguishing her strange light. Alex, standing next to her, screamed her name and attempted to run at the Minoru's, but Mrs. Stein got in his way. She raised her weapon-carrying arm and fired, nailing Alex in the chest with what looked like a thick webbing, and sending him hurling into the wall. The moment he hit it, the webbing stuck him firmly to said wall.

"Settle down, boy." Mrs. Stein said, with a hint of sarcasm in her voice.

In seconds, only Nico, Gert and Jake were left standing. In reaction, Gert dived to her right and curled up near some pile of machinery, and started mumbling something to herself. Nico stood her ground, facing her mom. Jake decided he didn't like these odds.

So he decided to change them.

He focused on the Steins. They noticed him standing there.

"We don't have to fight, you know." Mr. Stein said, in a surprisingly calm voice. "This can all be worked out if you just go quietly."

"Quietly?" Jake said in disbelief. The feeling of heat was back, filling his muscles with warmth and making his skin tingle excitingly. "Spartan's don't do quietly. Besides," Jake paused, shifting his weight from one leg to the other, "I like to fight."

"Fine. Have it your way." Mr. Stein growled. He raised his weapon and, before Jake could react, fired.

Time slowed again. Jake saw the blob of webbing-goo coming his way, twisting and billowing with the force of it's flight. Calmly, he moved to the side. The goo shot by his head with inches to spare.

Time to retaliate, he thought. He mentally flicked through his weapons. Nothing here that wasn't lethal, he realized. Not that he particularly _wanted _to let the Stein's live, but something in the back of his head kept registering in his conscious, something about data.

_Dead people don't give up intel_, Hannah chimed in. Jake nodded, understanding.

Intel. Of course, he thought back.

He was about to continue mentally flipping through his equipment when a noise from his right distracted everyone, including his targets. Jake turned with the Steins to witness a bizarre sight in a days worth of bizarre sights; Mrs. Minoru stepping back from Nico, who was looking at her in shock. Jutting from her chest was the handle of the staff that Mrs. Minoru had been holding earlier.

No, it wasn't jutting out of her, Jake saw. It was being _sucked into her body_.

Mrs. Minoru seemed shocked by this, probably as shocked as Jake was when, with a scream of "Snap out of it!", Nico grabbed what looked like a in-progress robot head and smashed it over her mom's own. Mrs. Minoru went down, hard. The three still-standing adults reacted.

"That's enough, Nico." Mrs. Stein shouted. "Put the toy down!"

"Leave her to me!" Mr. Minoru called in response. "I can discipline my own child. Handle the Yorkes girl!"

The Steins listened, turning away from Nico towards Gert. Jake, seeing his chance, decided to leap into action. Then he realized he didn't have anything to leap into action with.

Little help here...He thought to Hannah.

_Finally. I thought you'd never ask. _Hannah sounded exasperated. _Simple; knock 'em down._

Knock 'em down? Jake wondered. Realization came seconds later.

He was a Spartan, wasn't he? And Spartan's were more than human...especially when it came to close quarters fights.

His course suddenly clear, Jake surged forward, trying to decide which adult to deal with. The Steins had moved closer to Gert, but she didn't seem in any imminent danger. They were simply talking to her, and from what Jake could hear of her muttering (an apparent prayer to someone to help her), she was probably blocking them out. That left Mr. Minoru, who was closing with Nico. He was more of a threat, considering what he'd done to Karolina. Before he arrived, Jake stepped between them. Again, his body acted on it's own.

His hand reached out, catching the front of Mr. Minoru's robe in a steel grip. The man's forward motion stopped completely, and Jake could see the sudden shock in his eyes. Jake continued to grasp the robe and, with the ease of lifting on of his Xbox controllers from the floor, raised Mr. Minoru a good two feet off the ground. Mr. Minoru sputtered, which Jake took to mean he was doing his job right.

"Settle down, boy." He growled at the dangling man. Then, to add injury to insult, he forcefully threw Mr. Minoru across the room.

He didn't intend for him to go far, just a couple feet. Instead, his victim soared all the way to the open door and slammed into the wall next to it hard enough to shatter the wood. He hit the ground with a thud. Behind Jake, there was a loud splashing sound and a wet thud. A small screen opened in his HUD, a rear-view camera of some form. On it, Jake witnessed Karolina, now free of her water pillar prison, flop to the ground and puke up some water, skin beginning to glow again as she breathed. She seemed okay, so Jake refocused on the world before him.

Awesome, Jake concluded. Being a Spartan rules.

_Indeed. Now don't get distracted,_ Hannah scolded. _We've still got two targets on their feet._

Not for long.

Jake turned from Mr. Minoru to the Steins, who were near Gert. Deciding he wanted to try out the limits of his new strength, he grabbed a large piece of table from the ground and planted his feet in the positions of a charge.

It turned out he wasn't needed. The air was rent with a massive, animalistic roar, and a flash of flash of brown and blue and red soared through the still-open door, onto the Steins. The thing thrashed so much Jake couldn't tell what it was, and only realized it was the dinosaur-thing that they had found in Gert's basement when the girl let out a cry of joy that drowned out Mr. Stein's own scream and sprinted over to it. Seeing that, at least for the moment, the creature seemed more interested in mauling the Steins than harming Gert (though he personally still trusted Gert's parents claim it was for her protection, especially after what had just happened), Jake paused to take in the current situation. In addition to Gert and himself (who were still on their feet), Chase was still out cold, Alex was still stuck in his trap, Karolina still recovering from her dousing, and Nico was frozen in the corner, unsure what to do. The Steins (who, after being attacked by Gert's dinosaur, had either passed out or fainted) and Mrs. Minoru were contained, and so was Mr. Minoru... or so Jake thought.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Nico's dad pull himself to his feet. Jake hefted his table chunk, deciding to hit Mr. Minoru with it instead.

Karolina beat him to the punch. Before Jake could take a step, a blaze of yellow and red light shot past his head and caught Mr. Minoru full on in the face. With a grunt, he dropped to the deck, strange book of magic falling beside him.

In seconds, victory was achieved. Jake, slightly frustrated, tossed his now-useless cudgel aside.

"Oh geez," He heard Karolina mutter behind him. "Is he-"

"Alright?" Jake responded quietly. Another screen popped up before his eyes; Heartbeat and brainwave readings. "He's fine. Unfortunately."

"Hey, we don't want them dead, do we?" Karolina asked. Jake shrugged.

"They obviously don't care about our lives." He replied.

"Uh, guys?" Alex cut into the conversation. "I'm glad we haven't stooped to the level where intelligent debate isn't of any use, but could we save it until _after_ we get out of here?"

"Sure." Said Jake. He turned to Karolina. "Cut him down, would you?"

"Hurm." Karolina glowered at him, but moved over to Alex's side and began to burn away the webbing keeping him trapped. Even as he was being freed, Alex was shouting orders.

"Gert, control that thing! Those are still Chase's parents, remember?"

"Sure. Whatever." Gert turned back from Alex and whispered to her pet dino. "You heard him, girl. Let's settle for a nice mauling, shall we?"

Jake was personally glad he wasn't the Steins at that moment. Behind him, there was a thunk and a grunt as Alex came completely free of the goo holding him to the wall. He shook himself off and called something to Nico, who was standing over the still forms of her parents. Strangely uninterested in his friend's words, Jake went the opposite direction. He noticed Chase, still out cold on the floor. He reached down and hauled him up, draping him over his shoulder like the soldier he was.

"Come on, help me carry Chase..." Jake heard Alex said to Nico. He turned see them walking towards him.

"Got it covered." He replied, indicating the body on his shoulder.

"Oh, good." Alex said, before turning to Karolina. "You've got a license, right?"

"Yeah, just recently."

"Can you drive Chase's van?"

"I think so...but I haven't really used a stick shift in ages."

"I could drive. I got us here, didn't I?" Jake suggested. Alex shook his head.

"Your job's to keep and eye on Chase. You've got some kind of biological monitoring system in that armor, right?"

"Yeah, of course." Jake replied quickly.

"Then monitor him until he wakes up. Do whatever you need to do."

"Yes sir!" Jake barked, sarcastically saluting, before turning and lock-step marching out the door to the car. Behind him, Alex sighed.

Stupid worthless human, Jake thought to himself. Who made you CO?

He mentally jumped as he realized his last thought.

Where the fuck had that come from?

San Bernardino Freeway

5:31 A.M.

Jake swore as Chase's van made another jarring turn and hurled him once more into the side. Pain spread up his back, now unarmored, connected with the metal walls with a _thunk._

"Sorry!" Karolina called from the front. "It's this worthless stick...stupid thing's impossible to use!" She grunted and down-shifted, or tried to. The van lurched again. "Where the hell are we going, anyway?"

"The hospital, where else!" Nico shouted in response. Jake, looking through the space between the two front seats, noticed her touching her solar plexus with her right hand. At least, Jake hoped it was her solar plexus...

"I mean, come on, I've got a...giant rod stuck in me!" She continued. In response, a quiet, dry laugh floated up from Jake's feet.

"That's what you said last night..." The speaker added. Jake looked down to see Chase finally stir.

"So the wounded soldier lives." He said quietly. He elbowed Alex, who had fallen asleep, amazingly. The dark boy jumped, grunting. He blinked, and noticed Chase.

"Hey, you okay?" He asked. Chase groaned, flexing his back, arms and legs. He clinched his fists, still encased in the strange gauntlets he'd been wearing earlier.

"No really," He admitted. "Like I finished an entire freaking keg...by myself...and then dropped it on my head. After being hit by a car full of drunk college girls." He shifted, propping himself up against the back of the van, then looked down at his hands. "And why the hell am I still wearing my dads weird a-"

He we cut of as he noticed the other beings in the back with him; Gert, and the dinosaur from her basement.

"Holy shit!" Chase bellowed, upon noticing the latter.

"Take it easy." Gert said, soothingly. "She's friendly. She saved our lives back there."

"But...but...I thought we left that thing locked in your fucking basement!" Chase cried. Gert shrugged.

"So did I. We were wrong...thankfully."

"Sure," Chase muttered, unbelieving. He stretched again. "So, what did I miss?"

"Not much." Jake said, finally joining the conversation. "Just me breaking a table, Alex getting stuck to a wall, Karolina almost drowning and then blasting Nico's dad with her finger, Nico smashing her mom with a robot head, and Gert's dinosaur going Jurassic Park on your parents."

"That's not much?" Chase said sarcastically. "And I mean what happened _to me_. I can't remember anything after checking out these gloves."

"Well, uh, I don't know how to say this..." Alex paused, thinking. "But you dad assaulted you. Basically."

"Well what else is new." Chase cracked his neck. "Probably had that coming for what's been going on tonight. I'm surprised he didn't hit me black and blue."

"He didn't actually hit you." Jake added again. "He blasted you with this a stun charge from his Evil Watch of Doom."

"That is new." Chase said simply.

"Okay, now that everyone's awake and none of our injuries are life-threatening..."

"Hey!" Nico shouted from the front. "Giant rod, remember?"

"You'll survive." Chase taunted. "Your still alive, aren't you?"

"...I think we should skip Plan A and go straight to the police." Alex finished as if nothing had happened.

"Nah, man, screw that." Chase's eyes brightened. "Lets go the press."

"Or the military." Jake offered. The two boys looked at him in surprise. "What? Our parents are freaks, right? What do you do when you have freaks? Call the military and have them bomb the crap out of them."

"Um, sure..." Alex began. He looked like he was going to say something else, but he was cut off by a strange four-note beat that filled the van. Gert moved, reaching into her pocket and pulling out the cause; her cell phone.

"Okay, this is _Twilight Zone_ material." She said. "My phone _isn't even on_." She quickly opened it and turned it on. Though she was on the other side of the van, Jake heard the voice on the other end as clearly as if he were holding the phone.

"Gertrude, your father and I are very disappointed in you," The voice said. Jake quickly placed it as Gert's mom. "Now why don't you stop playing these little games and come home...or we will be forced to do something terrible to your young friend Molly."

Gert's mouth dropped open, shock filling her face. For a moment, Jake felt fear, confusion.

Then the heat was back, sweeping those feelings away and replacing them with confidence and anger. He grinned savagely, clenching his hand into a fist.

They shouldn't have done that...he thought. They really shouldn't have.

Because what the adults had set up was a hostage situation. And when a Spartan was involved, there was only one outcome;

Violent, quick and bloody death for all hostage takers involved.

Jake found himself looking forward to it.

End of Issue Six


	7. Issue 7, or Romance, Rage, Revelations

Runaways Remix: Pride and Joy

Issue Seven

Tommy's Roadside Rest Stop (Closed For Repairs)

5:43 A.M.

"So, where do we stand?" Alex asked the assembled group.

They were currently arranged in a rough circle around the open back doors of Chase's van. After receiving the call from Mrs. Yorkes, he had ordered Karolina to pull off the moment she got the chance. The girl had noticed the closed rest stop, and had pulled in.

"We have a hostage situation. Simple as that." Hannah's holographic form glowed on Jake's shoulder, arms behind her back in proper military style. "The Yorkes and Hayes, and possibly the other members of the Pride, have taken High Value Friendly Molly Hayes prisoner, and are demanding that if we fail to turn ourselves into their custody within the hour, they will execute her. Same goes for if we go to the authorities."

"But...their bluffing, right?" Karolina asked quietly. Jake could see the fear and confusion that he had been feeling recently evident on her face. She was pacing as well, and kept adjusting her jeans and shirt, which had seemingly grown and shrunk respectively during her recent dousing in magical water. Despite the situation, Jake felt a small tingle of warmth shoot up his back. Now if her pants would just fall down all the way...

"I doubt it." Gert's voice broke Jake out of his inner thoughts, ironically echoing his own personal negative voice. "We've seen them kill one young girl. Who knows how many times they've done this."

"At least seventeen." Hannah chimed in. The group looked at her in shock. "We know this had been going on since just before we were born, and it would be a good assumption that every meeting was like the one you witnessed. As the oldest of us is seventeen, they've had at least that many rituals. So seventeen sacrifices."

"So at least seventeen." Gert continued. "What's one more?"

"But this is their _daughter_!" Karolina spread her hands out for evidence, causing her pants to fall to about her hips. Jake raised his eyebrows at the skin underneath.

So she does have tan lines, he thought. He laughed disturbingly in his head.

"Didn't stop my mom!" Nico added to the conversation. "Unless you've forgotten, she stabbed me with a...an oversized _magic wand_!" She touched her chest again, in the place Jake had come to guess was where her mom had jabbed her staff. It was, despite his hopes of minutes earlier, _not _on her solar plexus. "I don't think blood relations mean anything to them right now."

"So we can't just walk away." Alex started pacing as well, going in an opposite direction of Karolina. "We have to take this seriously."

"So what _do_ we do?" Nico pondered.

"The police are out," Gert scuffed the dirt under her feet. "Mommy dearest specifically said-"

"We know." Jake finally joined the conversation. "They'll kill her. Hannah just said that."

"So what else is there?" Karolina cried, throwing up her hands in frustration, causing her pants to lower and her shirt to rise, followed by Jake's eyebrow. "Give up? Surrender to these psychos?"

"Maybe there's another possibility..." Alex said, crossing his arms. Chase jumped into the debate at this point.

"Yes, thank you!" He shouted, obviously excited. "We should totally got to go into some hardcore hiding. You know, like Saddam-style." He slapped his hands, still wearing the Fistigons, together. "Like I said a couple hours ago, I know this sweet-"

"Forget it." Jake snapped at Chase, cutting the boys rant short. "There is no way in hell we're retreating and hiding. Only the weak retreat." Suddenly needing something to do with his hands, Jake reached inside his coat and brought out his pistol, beginning to fiddle with it. "And if there's one thing I know for sure in this whole Grunt-shit crazy night, it's that we aren't weak." He finished with the pistol and put it back.

"Then you'll probably like what I have to offer, Jake." Alex stepped in closer to the group. "I say we do the opposite of retreat; Let's charge into Molly's place and rescue her."

"Hell yeah I like it!" Jake cried, standing. He strode over to Alex and clapped him hard on the shoulder. A little to hard, apparently. The boy sank to his knees with a grunt as Jake touched him. Jake quickly let go of him and he rose again.

"That has got to be the smartest thing you've said all night, Wilder." Jake finished, smiling.

"Smart?" Gert looked at Jake and Alex in disbelief. "How is that smart? The last time we dealt with our 'rents, we almost died!"

"Oh really?" Jake growled. "You're just saying that cause you got scared shitless and hid in a corner."

"Well sorry if I'm not a semi-human one man killing machine." Gert replied, scowling.

"True, but our parents weren't trying to kill us." Jake continued, not the least bit put off. "If they had been, we wouldn't be here. We're too valuable to them. That's the reason we're in this situation with Molly; they want us back. Alive."

"So how is throwing ourselves at them makes any sense?" Gert countered.

"You don't have to come, Gert." Alex interjected. "None of you do. It was my mistake that led to this. I was the one who thought we should leave Molly home to keep her out of danger. My mistake, and I'll be the one to fix it."

"Yeah, sure." Jake snorted. "If there's a fight going down, I'm in. Ain't nothing going to stop me."

He stopped, realizing something. "That, and unless you intend to free Molly by joining her on the Great Journey, you're going to need some backup."

"Jake's right." Karolina added. "You don't have any powers."

"Well none us do." Gert pointed out. "Well, except you."

"But you've got a dinosaur." Nico reminded her. "And Jake is, well, Jake. And Chase has-"

"A really fucking big problem!" The teen in question muttered from the side of the group. Jake glanced over to see him fiddling with the metal gloves on his hands. "I can't get my dad's stupid gloves off! I'm never gonna be able to wipe my own-"

Chase was cut off violently as, with a sudden roar, twin jets of fire erupted from the holes on the back of his gloves. Everyone looked at the smoking devices, Chase included.

"Oh." He said simply, stunned. "That totally ruled."

"How the heck did you do that?" Karolina pondered. Chase shrugged.

"Dunno. It just sorta...happened." He looked down at the Fistigons again.

"Impressive..." Hannah muttered. "Those flames were in the hundred Kelvin range, but I'm not reading any fuel sources or ignition points in the gloves."

"Kelvin?" Karolina and Chase asked simultaneously.

"It's a degree of temperature measurement, like Fahrenheit or Celsius." Hannah explained. "But better. More scientific. In simple terms, those flames are hot enough to instantly incinerate the flesh off someone and flame-cook the skeleton."

"Nice." Chase whistled, holding up his right glove.

"If those things are so powerful..." Nico thought out loud. "And he figures out how to use them, we could have a good chance of taking on Gert and Molly's parents."

"Yeah..." Jake stopped mid-sentence as a vision flashed into his head; Chase, cackling like a maniac, spewing flames into the living room of Molly's house, with himself at his side, adding to the inferno with a flamethrower. He shook himself free of the site and focused again on the real world.

"We?" Alex sounded surprised. "So your coming then?"

"Hey, it's like you said earlier." Nico tilted her head to the side slightly. "We've got to take care of each other, right?"

"Yeah." Alex replied quietly. Next to Nico, Karolina shifted.

"Well, if Nico's in...," She said, grasping her left arm with her right.

"Count me in, too." Gert said, rising off the back of the van. "I'm not going to let you stomp my 'rents without me."

The rest of the group turned to Jake, who smiled slowly.

"You even have to ask?" He said sarcastically.

"I'd be happy to provide tactical support for the operation," Hannah chimed in. "It's been way to long since I got to do any field work."

"Hell-fucking-yeah!" Chase shouted in jubilation "Pre-dawn raid, bitches!"

"Thanks, guys." Alex said, with a hint of pride in his voice. "I'm sure if we do it right, we can get Molly out safely." He paused, overtaken by worry or gratitude in his friends. "I mean, we've took down four of our parents before. Why shouldn't we be able to do it again?"

"Now were talking." Jake muttered himself. The rest of the group nodded in agreement.

"Alright then." Alex strode back towards the van, issuing orders as he did. "Chase, can you drive again?"

"Sure. Headaches mostly gone."

"Then get us to Molly's place. Fastest way. Everyone else, get in. Hannah?"

"Here. Orders?"

"Get me as much information on the target house as you can. Blueprints, pictures, the works."

"That it?" Hannah sounded surprised. Alex blinked.

"Sorry," He said sheepishly. "I'm new to this. Too much?"

"To little." The AI smiled broadly. "I can get us a live, real-time 3-D scan of the place. Thermal, sonic and radiological scans too."

"Do it." Alex turned to Jake. "And I might need you to check the place out for us with that armor of yours when we get there."

"Can do." Jake grinned, cracking his knuckles.

"Good. Now come on. Let's roll." Alex, followed by Jake, climbed into the back and closed the doors, just as Chase started the engine.

This is so going to rock, Jake decided.

Opposite the Hayes Residence

5:56 A.M.

With the engine of his van barley ticking over, Chase parked across the street from the Hayes's house. After a quick scan of the house by Hannah to see if their arrival had been noticed (which it hadn't), they filed quickly out of the back. Alex told Chase, Nico and Karolina to form a perimeter (after explaining what was, and where they were supposed to go), after which he and Gert clustered around Jake, who now had his armor on again, minus the helmet, and was using it to project a rotating hologram of the house. Within, several human-shaped blobs of red were visible. Hannah narrated from his shoulder.

"I count six lifeforms," She reported, pointing to each blob in turn. "Four match normal adult human parameters, most likely the Yorkes and the Hayes, one is radiating the same energy wavelength as Karolina does, so that's probably one of her parents, and the last one's probably Molly."

"Probably?" Alex asked in surprise. Hannah scratched her chin.

"Yes. There's something strange about the reading." She motioned at the smallest blob, in a room at the back of the house. "It usually matches an 11-year old girl, but every couple seconds it...well, _switches_, for lack of a better word."

"To what?" Alex probed.  
"Not sure," Admitted Hannah. "Doesn't match anything I've seen or that's in my database. I can tell you it's close to human, but that's about it."

"So it may not be Molly." Alex said slowly. "That's no good. We need to be sure."

"I can get a more detailed scan, get a positive ID...but I need to be closer."

"How close?" Gert asked, looking down at the hologram and scratching her head in thought.

"Within fifteen meters. Forty-five feet or so."

"I know the size of a meter, thank you." Gert muttered. "The real question is, how do we get you close enough to scan?"

"There's only one person who can." Alex turned to Jake, who nodded, understanding his request before he voiced it. He understood why. Hannah was in his head and armor, and she couldn't move without him. So, for her to get closer, he had to get closer.

"I can do that." He stood up and stared down at the hologram before him. He found himself surprisingly calm. Like making a scout run into dangerous territory was old hat for him. "Where outside the house is closest to Molly's room?" He asked. Hannah motioned, and a small section in the back yard, a couple yards from a swimming pool, lit up in red.

They have a pool. Sweet, didn't know that, Jake thought.

On closer inspection, the point was on a rise behind the house, surrounded by trees and shrubs. Jake approximated the distance from Molly's room (which was also lit up in red) and the point. It was almost exactly fifteen meters.

"Does distance matter for the scan? That seems a bit far." He wondered.

"Not really. Within the fifteen meter radius, its all the same. Anything outside that and it starts to go fuzzy."

"Fine." Jake turned around (the hologram staying in place as Hannah shifted it to the back of his armor) and reached inside the van, coming back out with one of the Sniper Rifles and something Hannah had explained as an Advanced Oracle scope. He slid the scope onto the top of the rifle and latched it in place. "Don't want to get close if I don't have to."

"A sound plan." Hannah agreed. "One more thing, though."

"Oh?" Jake turned back again, this time returning from the van with several ammo clips for the rifle.

"We don't have anyway to communicate with the rest of the group."

Jake, instead of feeling surprised, as would be expected, felt frustrated. He suddenly found himself missing something he couldn't name.

"What, my armor doesn't have a COM system?" He asked. Hannah snorted.

"No, of course it does. It's MJLONIR. The problem is that the rest of the group don't have anything to pick it up with."

"No problemo, babe." A voice spoke from the shadows. All three teens wheeled towards it, which was suddenly lit up as a pair of lights built into Jake's chestplate activated.

"Chase?" Gert asked in shock. "Aren't you supposed to be on watch?"

"I was. But then I saw something, and came back to tell you, and heard your problem with the radio."

"What did you see?" Probed Alex.

"The inside of the house." Chase grinned maniacally. "I remembered their weird goggles I was wearing when my dad nailed me. They're like, X-Ray or something."

"And..." Alex prompted.

"Well, I used them, and I saw into the house. It looks like there's no-one at the back or the side. Their all in the house."

"They don't see us as a threat." Alex murmured. "Good. That will make the operation go much smoother."

"Okay then..." Chase blinked.

"You said you had something to deal with our radio problem." Jake stated. Chase jumped for a moment, then nodded.

"Yeah. My dad got me these cool two-way radios recently. Can't remember why, but I've never used them."

"We can use them to talk to each other." Gert realized.

"Yes, but how does that help us with Jake?"

"I can modulate the COM in Jake's armor to the two-way's frequency." Hannah piped in. Alex nodded in approval.

"That will do." He turned to Chase. "Get the others. Tell them we're setting up soon."

Chase nodded, and ran off to get Karolina and Nico. Alex turned back to Jake, who was putting the Sniper Rifle on his back before grabbing his helmet.

"Play it safe, Jake." He said. "If you run into trouble, don't hesitate to run. No playing hero."

"Sure." Jake secured his helmet with a hiss of environmental seals. The moment he did, the hologram deactivated, plunging the group into darkness.

"If you need help, call us. We've got your back."

"Thanks." Jake nodded his appreciation to Alex. "But I won't need help."

Something pulsed in Jake's Motion Tracker; four yellow dots approaching from his 10 o'clock.

"We're back." Chase called cheerfully as he and the three other teens exited the bushes. "So, what's the plan?"

"We need some more intel." Alex crossed his arms. "Jake's going to get close and let Hannah get a clean scan of the target. See exactly what we're up against."

"I'm going with him." Karolina burst out. The rest of the group looked at her in surprise.

"You sure that's a good idea?" Nico questioned. "I mean, this could be dangerous."

"Yeah." Chase grinned sarcastically. "It's dark. And there could be boogie men out." He chuckled, before making spooky ghost noises until Nico elbowed him in the ribs.

"I can handle it." Karolina crossed her arms, daring anyone to disagree with her. "I'm just taking care of Jake. Like you said we needed to do, Nico."

Nico grumbled, but relented. Alex looked like he was about to say something, but Jake cut him off.

"Works for me." He said happily. "Besides, I could use K's powers."

The group looked at him in confusion.

"I'm out of flashbang grenades." He explained. "If I run into trouble, I can yank Karolina's bracelet off and buy myself some time. That, and it'll work as a flare to you guys. You see that shit light up, you come running."

"Cool." Karolina bounced on the balls of her feet, obviously ready to move out. Jake reached inside the van for a final time and handed her what looked like a stubby telescope.

"Spotter scope." He explained to her. "Can't just have you sit next to me and look pretty."

Karolina accepted the device, then followed Jake as he began his trek towards the hill. Before he left, Alex called out to him.

"Good luck, Jake." He said. "You too, K."

"I don't need luck." Jake replied quietly. "I make my own."

Then they dissipated into the plant life behind the Hayes house.

Fifteen Meters Behind The Hayes Residence  
5:58 A.M.

"Sierra Firefly One to Alpha Team, we're in position. Repeat, in position." Jake reported through his helmet. "Beginning scan now. Over." He smiled under his helmet, relishing the chance to use the mental lexicon of proper military radio speak he'd picked up over the years.

"Good." Alex's voice crackled over the other end of the line, slightly distorted by the differences in Jake's several-million dollar COM set and the $35 two-way radio he was connected to. "Give us another call when you're done. Over."

"Roger that. Sierra Firefly One, over and out." Jake shut down his COM with a satisfying click. After a second, he grunted and hauled his helmet off. Sweat dripped off his face, a product of the combination of the heat of the fabled California night, black MJLONIR armor that had all it's non-essential systems (including the heating/cooling ones) shut down to increase stealth, and the adrenaline howling through his veins. He wiped his hand across his face, the titanium-weave under-suit covering it coming away soaked.

"Yuck." He muttered, flinging it away into the grass.

"Hmm?" Asked Karolina, laying next to him. She turned her head and looked at him with questioningly.

"Nothing." Jake turned back to his Sniper Rifle, which was propped up on it's built-in bipod before him. It was in order, extra clips laid out on the side.

How's the scan coming, Hannah? He asked his AI.

_Fine. And, for your information, "clips" is the incorrect term for those. "Magazines" is the correct one._

Ah. Thank you for that little tip. How far's the scan, exactly?

_35 percent. I'd estimate it will be done in five to ten minutes._

Any way to speed that up?

_Sure, if I stop talking to you and focus all my processing power on it._

Do it. I want to get the hell out of her ASAP.

Jake waited for a response, but realized one wasn't coming. Hannah was doing what he asked. He turned to check on Karolina, who was looking through the spotter scope. All was in order. Jake turned back to the rifle, placing his eyes to the scope. Unlike modern sniper scopes, which required the user to close one eye and squint, the Oracle line had a large screen at the back, so the sniper simply had to hold the rifle at eye level to use it. It also featured several different vision options, including low-light, thermal, and VISR (Which Hannah had informed Jake stood for Visual Information System, Recon, and was the thing that had activated in his helmet during the fight in the Stein's workshop). Jake turned this last option on. The world jumped into digital focus, everything outlined in yellow. A red outline in a window on the lower floor of the house showed that one of the adults had decided to use the restroom. Everything was quiet.

Sweat dripped into one of Jake's eyes, forcing him to blink. He was about to wipe it away, but Karolina got it first with the cloth they'd brought with them for that purpose.

"Thanks." He said.

"Sure." Karolina paused for a moment, before drawing in a deep breath. "Hey, Jake?"

"Yeah?" Jake twisted a dial on the scope, adjusting the brightness. After setting it, he turned to face Karolina.

"You remember earlier tonight, at Alex's place?" She asked quietly.

"Technically, that was yesterday." Jake blinked. Had it really been only a couple hours? It felt like days. Maybe even weeks. "What about it?"

"Well, I told you I was scared. By all the weird stuff you guys were doing."

"Yeah..." Jake couldn't figure out where she was going with the conversation.

"I was wrong. That wasn't fear." She drew in another breath. Jake noticed her hands were shaking. Karolina tried to start again, but choked. It took Jake a moment to realize she was laughing.

"Sorry, it's just... I don't know how to say this."

"Take your time." He replied soothingly. He glanced at his helmet, lying top-down near him. The scan bar showed 53 percent. Karolina cleared her throat and started again.

"What I felt then wasn't fear. That was just...confusion. I know what fear is now." She looked at Jake, and he could see that same emotion echoed in her blue eyes. "I felt it, during the whole thing with me and the bracelet and, well..."

"What?" Jake rasped. His mouth suddenly felt dry. He pulled a canteen from his belt and took several long drinks.

"I wanted to die, Jake. Really, I did." Karolina swallowed hard, prompting Jake to hand her his canteen. She drained half of it, then tossed it back. "Finding out I was an a-" She choked again, continued. "Not human scared me so much I wished I was dead."

"Urmph." Said Jake. He couldn't think of anything coherent to say.

"That's pretty much how I felt." Karolina shifted, pulling away from the spotter scope to look at Jake. He noticed her eyes were wet. "But then I found out I could fly and..."

"You found you didn't really want to die." Jake guessed. Karolina nodded.

"Well, yeah. The whole things to do, places to see, stuff to try deal."

"Right. Sure. Been there, done that." Jake gestured for her to continue.

"I realized then that there was one thing I really wanted to try. Well, I guess two things. But I've already tried one." She slipped a strand of hair behind her ear. "So, well...I figured that I should try the other. And I was wondering if you could help me."

What the hell is she talking about? Jake pondered frantically. I really hope it's not what I think it is...

"Sure, I guess." He said to Karolina. "What exactly do you need help with?"

"This." Faster than Jake could react (even with his augmented reflexes, a problem Hannah later blamed on a mixture of Jake's split attention and Karolina's strange later-discovered ability to boost her own movement time to not just inhuman but in-Spartan levels), Karolina reached out, pulled Jake over to her side of the hill, and kissed him.

The kiss didn't last long, ten seconds at the most, and was so sudden that Jake almost didn't register it. When he did, he relaxed, closing his eyes. The moment he did, two things flashed into his mind; visions, memories, he wasn't sure.

In both, he was in the same situation; kissing someone. But that was about where the similarities ended. In the first, his attention wasn't on his partner, but his hand. More specifically, the large military-style knife it held. A flash of light, a hand-jarring thunk and a splash of something warm and red. A strange noise that might have been a scream. Then silence.

The second, he was obviously paying attention. He could count the brilliant red hairs on his partners head, sense her hands around his waist. He had something in his hand again, but it wasn't a knife. At least, it didn't look like one. But he used it as if it was, gently cutting the straps of the girls dress from her bare back. A sigh, a rustle of loose cloth and a whisper in some language he didn't understand. An unadulterated scream, maybe of pleasure. Then once again, silence.

Jake snapped back into reality as Karolina pulled back. He jerked in surprise, causing him to fall onto the patch of grass below his rifle. It took him a full three seconds to recover.

"Urk." He said, the moment he had breath back.

"Oh crap. Are you okay?" Karolina asked breathlessly, obviously concerned.

"I'm fine." Jake raised himself off the ground with a creak of armor. "Just wasn't expecting that."

"Sorry." Karolina blushed. "Probably should have said something."

"Nah." Jake waved his hand dismissively. "Surprise makes it better."

"Really?"

"That's what I heard." Jake leaned back against the hill, unable to help smiling. His body felt like it was filled with hydrogen. Lighter than air. A sudden thought struck him.

"Wait, you said "two things". If I'm the seconds...what's the first."

"Oh, yeah." Karolina looked at her feet, bringing her toes close enough to touch. "Well-"

Before she could finish, a small alarm went of in Jake's helmet. He grabbed it from it's resting place and scanned the HUD. The scan was complete.

"Tell me later." He said, slipping his helmet on. "Scans done. Now we have a hostage to rescue."

"Right. Molly." Karolina got up, brushed herself off, and grabbed the spotter scope. Jake did the same with his rifle. He turned on his COM.

"Alpha Team, this is Sierra Firefly One. We have the scan and are RTB. Over."

"Well done, Jake. Let's see what we have. Over."

"Roger. We are Oscar Mike as we speak. Over."

"Oscar Mike?" Alex sounded confused. Jake smiled under his helmet. Apparently, he knew more radio talk than the groups leader.

"On the move. Over."

"Right. Just get here."

"Wilco. Over and out."

Jake shut off his COM and turned to Karolina, who was staring at him.

"Come on." He motioned for her to follow. She fell into step beside him.

"Jake, about the kiss..."

"Later. After we rescue Molly."

"Alright. Just...if the group asks..."

"It never happened?"

"Yeah."

"Fine."

In silence, they walked off into the foliage.

Opposite The Hayes Residence

6:10 A.M.

When Jake and Karolina rejoined the group, Alex was in the middle of a planning session with the others. As they approached, he noticed them and stopped.

"Good. Your back. Did you get the scan?"

"No, I spent the entire time writing the next great Halo novel from my own experience." Jake said sarcastically. "Of course I got it. I said so on the radio, didn't I?"

"True. Let's see it."

Jake nodded, and moved back to his position at the back of the van. His armor lit up again as he did, the hologram of the house reappearing. Next to it, a small set of readouts glowed. Alex looked at them, but Jake could tell he didn't have a clue what they meant. Apparently, Hannah noticed to.

"The scan came up positive," She explained, appearing on Jake's shoulder again. "It's Molly, without a doubt. And I found the reason for the fluctuations." She pointed to a section of one of the windows, showing a line graph. She indicated a large spike above the rest of the data points. "This represents Molly's brain waves. The spike is where she tried to wake up, but something stopped her. My guess, based on what I've gleaned on the Pride's members, is that her own parents are using some kind of telepathic ability to keep her asleep during this whole thing."

"So they could have been bluffing." Karolina muttered. "I mean, why else would they keep her down for this? They still care enough for her not to know she's a hostage."  
"Or they're doing it to make her easier to kill." Hannah added. The group looked at her. "If her parents are using telepathy on her, all they would have to do is mess with the right part of her brain and she never wakes up."

"So we know the stakes." Alex said, beginning to pace. "We know Molly's there, and we know how many people we face. We can get Molly out of here." He paused, then turned to the group. "And I have just the plan for it."

"Lets hear it then!" Chase called. "What you got for us?"

"Here's how it's going to go..." Alex leaned in towards the hologram and began to explain. As Jake listened, he found himself nodding.

_Impressive. For a human, anyway. _Hannah said to Jake. _It's certainly worth a try._

No. Do, or do not. There is no try, Jake quoted.

_Then let's do it._

Just Outside The Hayes Residence

6:28 P.M.

(Unofficially Titled Operation: MOLLYHAWK T-2 Minutes)

"How about you, Delta Team? Yo u in position? Over" Alex's voice came through Jake's COM system. Jake had piped it through his external speakers so Gert, sitting next to him in the foliage surrounding Molly's house, could hear it. She, her dinosaur, Hannah and himself were Beta Team, the second of three teams in Alex's plan. Alex and Nico were Alpha, and Karolina and Chase were Delta, the ones being currently addressed by Alex. With his HUD set on VISR mode, Jake could see both teams easily in the dark, Alpha near the van across the street from the house, and Delta hidden not far from where Jake and Karolina had been half an hour earlier.

"Dude, we've in position. And we remember the plan. Just like the last billion times you asked us." Jake heard rustling over the link, which a quick glance at Delta's position proved to be nothing more than Karolina shifting in the grass. Chase continued. "Now can we know this role-play crap off and get on with this? You're killing the battery on my radio."

"Roger." Alex paused, signified by the hiss of static over the connection. "This is Alpha Team, proceeding with Phase One." He terminated the connection, and Jake could see him and Nico begin their approach to the house. Begin being the right word, as they stopped in the middle of the street. Jake could see that Alex was deep in conversation with Nico. Next to him, Gert shifted to get a better view.

"Hmmm." She hummed. "It would seem Romeo has finally decided to approach Juliet."

"Huh?" Jake wondered out loud. Gert rolled her eyes at him.

"It's Shakespeare."

"I know that. I took college-level English classes last year, remember? I mean, what's with the reference."

"You seriously don't know?" Gert raised her eyebrows. Behind her, the dinosaur snorted and scratched it's head with a three-clawed hand. "You haven't noticed them dancing around each other for the last year and a half?"

"No, not really." Admitted Jake. "Never really cared, actually."  
"You and me both." Gert muttered. "I've been trying to ignore it for a while, but when the dancers are some of your only friends..."

"No avoiding it." Jake finished. Gert nodded.

"Yeah. Of course now it's just a matter of time till-oh, there they go." She sighed and rubbed the bridge of her nose, where her glasses cut into the skin. Jake, who had turned away from Alpha Team to talk to Gert, turned back, confused. Though he'd been sort of expecting it, he was still surprised to see Nico latch onto Alex's mouth, grabbing the side of his face and shoulder in the process.

Unable to think of anything else to describe the sight, Jake said "They look like a Flood form gone wrong."

"I was going to say leeches fighting, but that works." Replied Gert. Both teens shuddered.

"What the hell is going on with everyone tonight?" Jake wondered out loud.

"Relationships are like time; they themselves cannot be sped up or slowed down, but the viewers perception of them can be. Confusion and fear for one's life are the best lubrication to use to accelerate them, as are they the grime that clogs their wheels." Gert quoted.

"Haven't heard that one before." Jake admitted.

"Wouldn't be surprised. My mom thought that one up."

"Ironic considering they're both time travelers."

"Ironic indeed." Gert smiled, the first time Jake had seen her do it the entire night. It faded as she noticed something. "Looks like our lovebirds are on the move." She noted. Jake checked. Sure enough, Alex and Nico had broken apart and were moving up the driveway to the door.

"Then so are we." Jake stood up quietly, followed by Gert and her pet. Still silent, they followed Alpha Team's progress, hidden by the plants on the left side of the driveway. All according to Alex's plan. Within moments, Alpha Team arrived at the doorstep, and Jake and Gert slid into hiding, just out of sight of the door. The left side of the house from the doorstep had relatively few windows, most leading to closets or bathrooms, which allowed Jake and Gert to sneak up undetected. Jake nodded to Alex, who returned it before ringing the doorbell. Jake gripped his weapon, a silencer and scope-mounted modification of the M7 Submachine gun line officially know (according to Hannah) as the M7S. He'd retrieved it from his bag earlier, during the planning session when Alex explained the need for stealth. Silenced as it was, it would be perfect for the task ahead.

The second the doorbell rang, Jake heard a voice call from inside the house. His armor booted up it's vocal recognition system, though Jake didn't need it. He knew the voice belonged to Mr. Hayes.

"Standby, people!" He shouted, obviously to the other adults in the room. "The prodigal children have returned."

Seconds later, the door itself opened, obviously by Mr. (no, Doctor, Jake remembered) Hayes. Though Jake couldn't see Molly's dad, he heard him.

"Mr. Wilder, Ms. Minoru...do come in. And quickly, if you don't mind. I'd rather not have the neighbors see us and have to mind-wipe them again".

Alex and Nico followed Dr. Wilder in. Jake motioned behind him to Gert, telling her to get ready. She nodded. They inched closer to the door.

Neither teen was quite sure was happening inside (Alex, Nico and Mr. Hayes seemed to have moved deeper into the building, just enough for their voices to be reduced to murmurs, and the doors had privacy glass). Jake leaned closer in, pressing his helmet to the door. He couldn't hear much, just snippets of sentences. Something about "playmates", "safe", "quid", "business", and "snap."

Then, quite clearly, though obviously strained, Jake heard Alex's voice;

"Beta Team...Phase...Two!"

"Lets go!" Jake howled. Rearing back on one leg, he executed a door breach, bringing his other foot down on the place where the two doors met, where they were weakest. The doors literally exploded under the force of his armor-boosted kick, sending shards of glass, wood, and metal everywhere. The blast apparently caught Dr. Hayes (who, Jake noticed, was wearing his costume from the night sacrifice, a red and black vest style affair with a cape and a mouth cover, of all things) unaware, as Jake's foot only stopped moving as it came in contact with the good doctor's back. With a grunt, he tumbled to the ground. Jake threw himself out of the way, turning in time to see Gert's dinosaur burst through the remains of the door. It leapt at the floored Dr. Hayes, who screamed. Gert followed it inside, with Jake on her tail.

"You alright?" She asked Alex and Nico, who were keeling on the floor for some reason.

"Yeah, fine." Replied Alex. "Just make sure that your pet keeps the good doctor occupied."

"Can do, boss." Gert saluted Alex, then moved to keep an eye on her dinosaur and it's victim. Alex continued issuing orders, heading for the stairs as he did.

"Nico, you keep an eye on stuff down here. Jake, you come with me. We're gonna-"

Alex's sentence ended with a loud _crack _as, without warning, a large, thin ax swung around the door. He ran face-first into the flat end, lost his glasses, and dropped like a stone.

"Alex!" Nico howled.

Shit, is he okay? Jake asked Hannah.

_He's fine, but I'd be more worried about us right now_, replied the AI. _That's a samurai battle ax._

A _what_?

_A weapon from an alternate past. Combines the best features of a katana and a battle ax. Very dangerous._

Jake was about to respond when the ax's owner came around the corner; Mr. Yorkes, with his wife at his side. Both wore their Pride uniforms (as Jake had come to think of the costumes each of the members wore), which consisted of what looked like turn-of-the-century English wet weather gear, topped with goggles and ear muffs. The ax Alex had just run into was placed on the floor in front of Mr. Yorkes, who used its handle as a hand rest.

But of course, Jake thought. Who else would have weapons from alternate time streams?

"Girls, I must say I am disappointed." Mr. Yorkes said, amazingly calm despite the fact he'd just knocked Alex out cold. "Call me old fashioned, but all this fighting seems most unladylike."

"Then maybe you should worry about the Spartan on their six, old man." Jake said boldly, before Nico or Gert could reply. To back up his statement, he raised his M7 to his shoulder and placed the sight over Mr. Yorkes head. "Now how about you step away from my friend, or we'll see how well those fancy duds of yours handle a couple dozen rounds of 5mm Full Metal Jacket spray."

If Mr. Yorkes was intimidated by Jake's threat, he didn't show it. He did the exact opposite of a fearful reaction; he laughed. Quietly, as if amused by Jake's bluster and bravado.

"Oh Jake. You truly are your father's son." He said, smiling warmly. "You even favor the same weaponry. That is your father's M7S, is it not?"

"Uh..." Jake stuttered, caught off guard. He hadn't been suspecting something like this. "What does it matter to yo-"

He stopped as he felt something tap his toe. Glancing down, he saw something that made his blood run cold;

A grenade, spinning slowly away from him.

Jake looked up, shock filling him. Had he not been wearing a helmet, everyone would have noticed it echoed in his eyes. He noticed Mrs. Yorkes putting her hand under the cape she wore over her coat. He guessed she must have chucked it.

Speaking of grenade...Jake glanced down again. It was still there, but it hadn't gone off. In fact, it seemed to be spinning slower than it had been. With relief, he recognized the effects of Spartan Time. With no time to lose, Jake did the only thing he could think of to get away; he threw himself backwards, rolling on his back and continuing.

The grenade detonated, a brilliant flash of light and a crackle of energy. Jake stood up from his roll...

And promptly fell back down, slamming into the wall hard enough to leave a dent. He slid down, unable to move. Arcs of what appeared to be lightning coursed over his armor, making his skin tingle. To his right, Nico stumbled back towards the couch opposite where the door had been, holding her eyes. She'd gotten caught by the grenades explosion as well. Jake tried to stand up, found he couldn't move. He was stuck.

What the fuck? He wondered angrily.

_Electromagnetic Pulse grenade! Every thing's shorted out! _Hannah cried. _Sith, we should have seen that coming!_

You mean this thing isn't EMP hardened?

_It is, but you have to set it up. We haven't had the time. I'll try and reboot your armor. _

Please do.

Hannah fell silent, hopefully working. With nothing else to do, Jake focused on the confrontation between Nico, Gert, and her parents.

With him out of the way, the Yorkes seemed to have focused on their daughter, who, despite her attempts at the contrary, was obviously scared of them. She'd backed up away from them as they had moved closer to her, placing her back against her dinosaur.

"Well, looks like you found your inheritance." Mr. Yorkes said to his daughter, using the same voice he'd been talking in for the past couple minutes. "Funny, last time I checked, your mother and I weren't even dead yet."

"Yeah, well that...that can be changed." Gert stuttered. "Your murders. I've got no trouble sic...siccing this girl on you.

Again, in response to the threat, Mr. Yorkes laughed. His wife joined him this time. Jake clenched his hand in frustration, wishing he could get in on the action.

"Convincing, Gertrude." Mrs. Yorkes said calmly, speaking for the first time in the confrontation. To Jake's amazement (and, apparently Gert's, considering the gasp that followed), she reached out and scratched the dinosaurs head. Instead of attacking her Jurassic Park-style, the dino closed it's eyes and snuggled up to Mrs. Yorkes.

"Unfortunately," She continued, "This creature was genetically engineered to be unable to harm a member of your immediate family."

_Amazing,_ whispered Hannah. _The gene-tech from their home time must be incredible._

Less gaping, more rebooting, Jake ordered her.

"So now that we have that explained," Mr. Yorkes added to his wife's talk, "Perhaps we can all settle down and work this-"

For the third time this hour, a sentence was interrupted violently. This time, it was Mr. Yorkes, who was cut of by Nico. Having apparently shaken off the shock of the grenade blast, the gothic Asian girl joined the fray by bellowing at the top of and charging at Mr. and Mrs. Yorkes...unarmed.

Damn it Hannah, get this thing back up before the stupid bitch gets herself killed! Jake howled through his mind.

_Almost got it..._ There was a crackle, and with a jolt Jake found he could move again. He rose...

A moment to late. With a cry of "No!", Mr. Yorkes swung his ax up on instinct. The blade caught Nico across the chest, easily slicing through her hand-made black outfit and slicing into the skin beneath. The force of the blow sent her onto the floor in a spray of blood, next to Alex's still-unconscious form. She didn't stir.

Silence reigned. Everyone stared at Nico's form, the Yorkes included.

Suddenly, Jake found himself breaking that silence.

"You bloody son of a bitch!" He howled, jumping to his feet. The Heat returned to his body, filling his veins. His heart pounded, breath rasping in his throat. His vision clouded red, and sanity began to slip from him. With a roar, he charged at the Yorkes.

Unlike Nico, who had attacked them out of desperation, Jake's assault was a tactical maneuver. He knew (or at least thought he knew) what he was doing. Though he was unarmed, he doubted Mr. Yorkes ax could penetrate his armor. And if it did, he and the armor would survive. Earlier, Hannah had explained that one of the additions to the MK X MJLONIR was a self-repair system. A single ax wasn't going to do any major damage. If anything, it would leave Mr. Yorkes open for a counterstrike.

He didn't, however, think of any of this as he ran forward. The only thought in his mind was that Gert's parents had hurt his friend, and now they were going to pay with their blood. At the very least.

As it turned out, the former thoughts were unimportant anyway; Jake, in his enraged mood, moved faster than he'd ever before, so much that he reached the Yorkes before they could react. With another scream, Jake struck.

Catching Mrs. Yorkes in the stomach with an elbow shove as he passed but not slowing down, Jake rammed into Mr. Yorkes with the force of a freight train. Though his target was fit, and weighed several dozen more pounds than Jake, the sheer force of the Spartan's charge lifted Mr. Yorkes off his feet. The two continued across the room, only stopping when they collided with the wall, which cracked and dented from the impact. Mr. Yorkes roared in pain, until Jake shut him up with a viscous punch to the stomach. Stunned from hitting the wall and the punch, Mr. Yorkes didn't react when Jake boldly grabbed him by the collar with one hand an threw him across the room. As luck would have it, he landed on his wife, who was just beginning to rise, clutching her chest where Jake had elbowed her. They both went down. Jake, out of enemies for the moment, felt the Heat and rage leave him. His vision cleared, and he focused on Gert, who was looking at him in amazement.

"Don't just stand there!" He shouted at her. "Check on Nico!"

Gert, snapped out of her daze by his voice, nodded. After a moments thought, Jake reached into his belt and tossed a can of some form to her. She caught it.

"Biofoam." He explained. "It should keep Nico from bleeding to death if the cuts to bad. Just spray it in there, it'll do the rest."

"O-okay." Gert said, shakily. She quickly moved to Nico's prone form. Jake, satisfied that his friend would be taken care of, turned back in time to see Mr. Yorkes charge at him with ax in hand. Calmly, he

stepped to the side, and put his foot out in Mr. Yorkes path. Behind him came the thump of his victim hitting the floor. Jake popped his visor open just long enough to spit, then turned to face the downed Mr. Yorkes. The Heat and rage returned as he did.

"Well now we know why you think fighting is unladylike." He spat. "We've been fighting for less than five minutes and your already done."

"On the contrary, young man." Mr. Yorkes replied. "I am, as you young people like to say, just getting warmed up."

With a yell, he swung his ax back up, a blow that would have caught Jake's neck if he hadn't dodged. As it was, the ax snagged on Jake's shoulder plate, allowing Mr. Yorkes to haul himself up and throw a punch at Jake's face. Though he could have dodged it, Jake let it come. The blow rebounded of his faceplate, doing not damage to it and coinciding with a soft crunching noise from Mr. Yorkes hand. Gert's dad stumbled back, clutching his injured appendage, leaving himself open for Jake to land another blow to his midriff. This time, he followed up with an uppercut to the jaw, lifting Mr. Yorkes off his feet completely and sending him several feet back.

Something, a feeling, made Jake turn away from Mr. Yorkes. As he did, he found himself face to face with his M7S, held in the hands of Mrs. Yorkes and aimed at him.

Jake didn't even say anything. He just moved. In less than a second, he crossed the gap between them, grabbed his SMG, yanked it free of Mrs. Yorkes grasp, and slammed his fist into her face. She went down, clutching her nose. Jake whirled back around, just in time to catch another ax strike from Mr. Yorkes on his left gauntlet. His armor cracked, but only slightly. In the seconds the two opponents stood facing each other, they disappeared as the armor repaired itself. Jake suddenly found himself laughing. A cold, inhuman noise, like something a Sith Lord of Star Wars might make.

"Fool." He spat at Mr. Yorkes. "Do you really think you can stop me?"

From his right gauntlet came a loud clicking noise. A glance over at it showed the plates sliding back, allowing a blade to unfold and emerge from within. Jake leapt back, bringing his new weapon up in a guard position. Mr. Yorkes looked at it and coughed once. Jake noticed he had blood running from his nose.

"So. I see you have your father's distorted sense of honor as well." He said thickly. Jake depolarized his faceplate just long enough for Mr. Yorkes to see his vile grin.

"So I do." He replied. Then he swung his right arm in a wide strike, which Mr. Yorkes caught and repelled.

The next couple minutes (Jake wasn't sure how long, too busy fighting as he was) passed in a blur of strike, counterstrike, stab and parry and other swordplay moves Jake couldn't name. Strangely, as he fought, Jake remembered a song he had heard at some point, possibly during one of his many late-night Halo binges, either playing the games or reading the books over again. Sung by the Sick Puppies , if he remembered correctly. Some semi-dated band from Australia. Fittingly, it was titled "You're Going Down". Jake found himself attacking to the beat and actually singing the lyrics at several points.

But despite the showiness of the combat, there really was not contest. Jake could have ended the fight (and possibly Mr. Yorkes life) by simply activating the identical blade Hannah informed him was in his other gauntlet and stabbing it through his opponents chest. But, either because some still normal part of him didn't want to be a murderer, or because he had the strange sense of honor mentioned by Mr. Yorkes, he didn't and let the fight continue, until at last he wrapped his blade around the handle of Mr. Yorkes ax and sent it flying across the room. It stuck to the wall, quivering. Mr. Yorkes backed away, hands held up in surrender. Jake kept the blade pointed at him.

"Now, I have a few questions about your little group." He growled. "Your going to answer. Play nice, and I won't gut you like an Energy Sword-wielding Elite attacking a Drone."

"I wouldn't be so sure your in a position to be making threats, Jake." Mr. Yorkes said. Jake blinked, and was about to ask what he meant, when the answer literally hit him on the head.

With a _thunk_, something hard and cylindrical crashed into his helmet. Jake guessed it was another grenade. He started turning around, and was about to mention to Mrs. Yorkes (who was probably the grenade's thrower) that it wasn't going to do anything now that he was ready for EMP's when the grenade detonated. Instead of energy, it released something brown, sticky, and cold. In seconds, it coated most of Jake's armor, hardening and making it impossible to move.

Oh great, now what's this shit? Jake roared in his mind. He looked down at his hands, stuck in mid-turn. The substance was strange, unlike anything natural, but Jake realized he'd seen it somewhere before.

Carbonite! He growled. The same crap Han Solo had been frozen in for a couple months in Star Wars. He clenched his only free hand angrily.

"You've certainly made a mess, Mr. Hunter." Mrs. Yorkes said from behind him. Jake's rear-view camera showed her helping her husband up. "And I must say, you have obviously inherited your parents fighting skills. As well as their anger. I suggest you take the foreseeable future to think about what you've done. Maybe when you calm down, I'll let you out of that block."

"The only way I'll calm down is if you rip my heart from my chest, bitch." Jake snapped. He waited for her to walk around to his front, Mr. Yorkes in tow, then opened his visor enough to spit in her face. Mrs. Yorkes wiped his saliva off her face, then started at him with hard eyes.

"Well, I was hoping you would see reason," She said quietly. "But apparently you aren't interested in that. It would seem I need a mores stern measure of discipline."

"Think again." Said a voice from behind the Yorkes. Everyone (including Jake, to the length that he could) turned to see Nico, once again on her feet. She was pale, even more so than she'd been earlier, and the rip in her clothes was bloody, but the massive cut across her chest was filled with the distinctive yellow bubbles of biofoam.

And clutched in her left hand was her mother's staff.

The appearance of this object apparently shocked the Yorkes more than the fact that she was still alive.

"Where...where did you get-" Mrs. Yorkes stammered. Nico cut her off by raising the staff.

"Freeze." She ordered. But she didn't speak in her own voice, to Jakes surprise; her word echoed, as if two Nico's were speaking in unison, and it had a strange, bass rumble to it. It reminded Jake of this machinima he'd seen made using Halo 2 where this hacker's voice sounded the same every time he changed the game, usually by saying something witty or fitting for the changes (like "How about two for one?" before bringing a pair of Plasma Rifles into existence)

But what shocked Jake even more than the voice was the effect; Mrs. Yorkes literally froze, stopped in mid-sentence and motion. A white aura seemed to surround her. Mr. Yorkes looked at his wife in amazement, before collapsing with a grunt to the ground. Behind him stood a red-faced Gert, holding a chunk of wood from the door.

"Nice." Jake said.

"Thanks." Gert breathed out loudly. She turned to Nico. "You alright? You look kinda pale. And what the hell did you do-"

"Later, Gert." Nico replied quietly. She looked down at the Yorkes. "Keep an eye on them. And when Alex wakes up...tell him we're on to Phase Three."

"Sure." Gert nodded, then sat down on the couch, apparently exhausted. Nico turned to Jake, who was still stuck in carbonite.

"You need help getting out of there?" She asked. Jake shook his head.

"Nah, I got this." He flexed, putting the force of his muscles at a certain point. With a crack, the carbonite fell to the floor in chunks. He brushed himself off, then stood up and retracted the blade on his arm.

"Lets do this."

Molly Hayes Room

6:42 P.M.

( Operation: MOLLYHAWK T+12 Minutes)

Jake and Nico both moved quickly moved up the stairs, Jake in the lead. He reached the top silently, and slid into the large open space to the right of Molly's door. He noticed it was open. He didn't like it.

"Okay, here's how this shit's goin' down." He whispered to Nico. "I'll lob a flash grenade in there, then run in and pulverize anyone still on their feet. Then you come in as soon as I've cleared it, grab Molly, and-"

"No." Nico interrupted him. Jake blinked in surprise, but the authority in Nico's voice stopped him from continuing. Where the fuck had this come from?

"Alright, what do you suggest?" He asked.

"I'll go in first. You cover my back." She gripped the staff harder. "Mrs. Hayes is probably in there. When I go in, she'll try to do something to me telepathically. If she does, I need you to distract her and break that spell."

"Okay, sure." Jake nodded. Though he didn't like how much danger Nico was putting herself in, he thought the plan sound. "How should I distract her?"

Nico paused for a moment, thinking. Then, an evil smile spread across her face.

"Surprise me." She replied.

"Wilco." Jake took up a covering stance on the side of the door. Nico, seeing him in place, moved into the room. In the sudden quiet, Jake heard something coming from the room; a lullaby, sung by Molly's mom.

For some reason, Jake found the innocent words chilling. Trying to shake it off, he tried to remember if their target was a doctor too. It didn't come to him, so he focused instead on the unfolding drama within.

"Hands off her, witch." Nico spat. Mrs. Hayes stopped singing.

"Isn't that the pot calling the cauldron black, Nico?" She asked sweetly. "You're the one who looks like they should be burned at the stake.

"You people-" Nico started to say, but Jake failed to hear the last of it as Hannah cut in for the first time in quite a while.

_Jake, I'm getting energy spikes! _

What? Where from?

_I don't know! They're like nothing I've ever scanned! _

Well full shield or whatever! Put up every defense this armor has!

_Understood. Going to full Omega-Two Readiness now._

The moment Hannah finished talking, Jake heard a scuffle from inside the room. Then Nico's voice, strained like Alex's had been at the beginning of the mission.

"Now!" She shouted.

Jake swung around the door, SWAT style, instantly scanning for Mrs. Hayes. He saw her, standing over Nico, who was on her knees again, arm raised. He also saw (but didn't really register) the fact that her eyes seemed to be glowing pink. Not bothering to think about it, Jake brought the butt of his M7S up and slammed it into Mrs. Hayes chest. He would have shot her, but he could see Molly directly behind her, asleep in her bed. A single bad shot could seriously injure her, maybe even kill. And _that _was something they didn't want happening.

His victim stumbled back, coughing. Jake's strike had forced her away from Molly, allowing Jake a clear line of sight. He raised his SMG to his shoulder one more.

"Stand down." He ordered. "I don't know about you, but I'd rather not have poor Molly here wake to the sight of your brains spraying over her wall."

Mrs. Hayes responded by spitting on the ground and glaring at him.

"So, not even his own flesh and blood is safe from Hunter's quest for the ultimate weapon," She growled.

What the hell is she talking about now? He wondered.

"Yeah, we he found it. That's me, right here." He said out loud. "And unless you chill, I'll show you just how-"

"Nico, Jake?" Came a soft voice from Jake's right. Jake couldn't turn all the way around (weapon being aimed at Mrs. Hayes as it was), but his rear-view camera activated again. The speaker was Molly, who had apparently just woken up. This wasn't surprising. Anyone who could sleep through what had just happened wasn't normal. Or had just pulled a massive overnighter.

Despite the situation, Jake found himself chuckling at the pajamas she was wearing. They even had a matching hat.

Then he noticed the small trickle of blood coming out of Molly's right nostril.

"What did you do to her?" Nico cried, noticing it as well. To both teens amazement, Mrs. Hayes seemed as surprised as they were. She even apparently forgot the gun Jake was holding at her.

"Nothing!" She cried, hurrying over to her daughter's side. "Molly, what happened?"

"Huh?" Molly wondered, confused. Then she noticed the blood. "Oh jeez." She muttered, wiping it away with her finger. "This is what I was trying to tell you..." She looked up, eyes full of confusion.

"Something's wrong with my body." She said. Then, as if to prove her sentence true, her eyes lit up. The same color as her mom's.

That one moment, when Molly's eyes changed from the emerald green that would entice any boy she wanted once she got old enough to the inhuman, brilliant, glowing pink of her parents, scared Jake more than everything else had that entire night. He found himself fearing for his life, from something he didn't know but still understood completely.

Shit, they rigged her! He howled to Hannah, raising his SMG in Molly's direction. They turned their own fucking daughter into a biobomb!

_No, it's alright! _Hannah replied, relief evident in her voice. _I'm not getting any rad counts. She's clean._

The how the fuck do you explain this?

_I think...I think she's a mutant. Like her parents. _

Oh, well that's good. Jake felt himself relax. Biobombs (whatever the hell they were) were something to worry about. A mutant...not so much. Hell, wasn't he technically one?

Molly's mom and Nico seemed to be taking this harder than he was, he noticed. Both were staring at Molly in shock.

"Shes...shes..." Nico stuttered.

"No, she can't be a mutant." Mrs. Hayes said quietly, probably more to herself than any of the other three people in the room. "We had her scanned at birth. I thought she was negative. I thought-"

What she thought, Jake never found out. With a cry of "Shut up!", Nico slammed Mrs. Hayes in the back of the head with the staff. Her victim crumpled without a sound.

"Nice." Jake noted. Nico shrugged, and looked down at Mrs. Hayes still form.

"Your lies end right now." She spat. Turning to Jake, she nodded. Jake, guessing what she wanted, stepped over and aimed his SMG at the still form on the floor.

At that moment, Molly decided to make her feelings on the events known.

"STOP IT!" She howled. Jake whirled around, followed by Nico...

And came face to face with something he wouldn't forget for a very, very long time.

Molly stood on her bed, fist clenched around her sleep hat in anger. Her eyes still glowed pink, but the coloration had intensified, as if fed by her anger, so that Jake could barely see any of the actual eye. It seemed to have spread as well, and now her hair was softly glowing as well, each strand billowing as if electrified.

"GET AWAY FROM MY MOM!" Molly howled again. Both Nico and Jake stepped back.

Fuck, could this night get any worse? Jake wondered.

End of Issue Seven


	8. Issue 8, or Runaways

Runaways Remix: Pride and Joy

Issue Eight

The Hayes Residence, Molly Hayes Room

6:45 A.M.  
(OPERATION:MOLLYHAWK T+15 Minutes)

"I MEAN IT!" Molly howled at Jake and Nico. "LEAVE MY MOM ALONE!" With each scream, the light surrounding her hair and filling her eyes seemed to glow brighter.

Jake took an involuntary step back, raising his SMG.

"Take it easy, Molly." Nico said soothingly, backing up to where Jake was. "We're not going to hurt you."

"Yeah." Jake added, pausing a moment to lower his SMG. "We're here to rescue you."

"Jake?" Molly asked, sounding surprised. "Is that really you in there?"

"It's me." After a quick glance around the room for more threats, and a quick check with Hannah to see if his plan was physically possible, Jake unsealed his helmet and took it off. "See?"

Molly's face brightened, both literally and physically, as the glow strengthened even more. The anger that was in her face drained away.

"Cool! You're like a human tank or something! Best costume ever!" She cried, flinging her hands in the air. Her eyes flicked down to the SMG in Jake's hands. "Is that thing real?"

"As real as it gets," Jake said. He let out a silent breath. For a moment, he'd worried he was going to find out what effects Molly's mutant genetics had done to her body...personally.

"Nice!" Molly blinked, suddenly looking confused. "Wait, what are you guys-"

"Everything alright up here?" A voice called from the stairway. Jake cranked his head around to see Gert climbing the stairs, dinosaur following her. "We heard screaming-"

She was cut off as Molly, noticing the dinosaur following Gert, proceeded to scream (loud enough to make Jake clap his hands to his recently strengthened ears in pain), take a step back, and promptly fall off the bed.

The Nico and Gert exchanged a look, not sure what to do. With a groan, Jake slung his SMG and walked around the side of the bed. Molly was her back, left hand clutching her covers, apparently none the worse for the wear, with the exception of the shocked look plastered on her face. Jake reached out to her, slowly. She came to him, but instead of taking his hand, she simply encircled his right leg with her body. The groan of compressing metal came from the plates under her. As he attempted to walk back to the group, not even trying to get Molly off his leg (as he guessed it was going to take nothing short of a large vial of polypseudomorphine to get the girl to her feet), Jake overheard part of the conversation going on between Gert and Nico.

"Jeez," Gert muttered. "When Molly said she was having body problems, I though, you know..."

"No shit." Nico agreed, snorting at the end. "I figured it was just her time of the month or something too. This..." She sighed, and shook her head. She noticed something. "Wait, aren't you supposed to be downstairs?"

"It's cool." Gert waved her hand dismissively. "Delta Team moved in to keep an eye on the truly-evil parents. Though it's really not worth it," She added in an undertone. "They won't be going anywhere for a while."

"Hey, you guys okay?"

Jake glanced over to the door, from where this new voice had originated. It was Alex, looking slightly battered and rubbing his head where Mr. Yorkes ax had hit him.

"Your alive!" Nico said, obviously glad the boy was okay.

"Yeah," Alex grunted. "But tomorrow I'm going to have a bump the size of Jake's helmet on the back of my head." He groaned, then looked around. "Where's Molly?"

"Down here." Jake said, pointing to his leg. The rest of his friends looked down to see Molly still clinging to the black armor plate. Molly shrank back, pulling herself closer to Jake's leg.

"Woah, when did this happen?" Alex asked in surprise, noticing mutant glow coming from Molly and taking a step back and holding up his hands.

"Like, three minutes ago." Nico explained. "We came in to rescue her, and then she woke up and...turned on." She shrugged again.

"Makes sense." Alex said quietly. He knelt down to address Molly. "You alright?" He asked. Molly nodded.

"I'm fine," She replied. "But what are you guys doing in my house?"

"We're here to save you," Said Gert, repeating Jake's explanation from earlier. The dinosaur growled softly. Molly made a scared noise and clutched herself even closer to Jake's leg. Pain shot up it, and something in the leg plates broke with a soft _crack_. Jake grunted, but shook it off. Gert noticed Molly's fear.

"Don't worry." She said, patting the dinosaur. "She's friendly."

"A friendly dinosaur?" Molly replied, sounding one part sarcastic, one part unconvinced.

"Yeah, like Barney." Nico jumped in. Molly furrowed her brow at this.

"I_ hate _Barney." She muttered angrily.

"Uh...okay. Anyway, I know you're confused right now," Gert continued. "But there's noting bad about it. Basically, you're what we call a mutant, which means-"

"I know what a mutant is, stupid!" Molly snapped back. "I watch the news, you know." She glared at Gert before continuing. "What I'm confused about is why Nico just hit my mom in the face with a giant stick thing!"

"Cause she had to." Alex jumped in. "This might be hard to believe, but...well, your parents are bad people." He paused, sighted, rubbed where his glasses cut into his face. "All of our parents are."

"Don't sugar coat it for her." Gert said sternly. She turned to Molly. "Look, simply put, our parents are supervillans. Like on TV." She paused, gauging Molly's reaction. If the girl was feeling any strong emotions it didn't show. Her face was blank. "You remember that "costume party" we saw in the Wilder's house?"

"How could I forget?" Molly growled. "I mean, you guys kept shoving me around and acting all weird. Like, first you made me miss the party so Karolina could fix my hair, but she said there wasn't anything wrong with it. Then we played Twister for like, the shortest time ever, then I had to go with Gert to the bathroom for no reason, then the guys left for something and you started deciding who was going to have sex with who-"

"What?" Nico and Gert burst out. Jake and Alex simply blinked and looked down at Molly. The girl shrugged. "Hey, I said I wasn't stupid." She explained crossly. "I know what you guys talk about when I'm not there."

"Okay, first, that didn't happen." Gert continued. "Second, just after you left...they killed a girl. One not much older than you."

Molly fell silent, eyes flicking wildly between her friends. She glanced at them, then up at Jake, then again at them.

"You're lying!" She shouted at the assembled teens, gripping Jake's leg tighter. She paused for a moment, glaring. After thirty seconds had passed, she glanced up at Jake.

"Well, why are you still standing here?" She probed. "Shoot them or something!"

"Yeah...sorry." Jake said apologetically, half meaning it. "We're kinda on the same side."

"But they're crazy! Nico just hit my mom with a stick! And they all think our parents are evil and stuff!"

"That part is unfortunately true, Ms. Hayes." Hannah spoke from inside Jake's armor. Molly whipped her head around, looking for the source of the voice. "Up here." The AI commanded. Molly glanced up, and from the expression on her face (one of surprise and intrigue), Jake guessed Hannah had made herself visible on her shoulder.

"Awesome! You've got Cortana too!" She cried. Jake felt Hannah jerk back, hopefully in surprise. She was flattered, that much Jake could tell.

"Uh, no. This isn't Cortana." Jake explained. "This is Hannah. Hannah, Molly."

"Oh, well she's still glowing and pretty and stuff." She said, settling calmly onto Jake's leg once more. Jake felt his face morph into a look of confusion.

What the hell is up with her? He asked himself. Hannah answered.

_Her biochemical system is completely mixed up right now. She's not completely human anymore, remember, _She said. _Think puberty mood swings, but worse. _

Harsh.

_Indeed. _

"But I still think you're lying." Molly stated. "There's no way my parents can be evil."

"I wish it was really that way, man." Yet another voice came from the hall. This time, it was Chase, with Karolina in tow. The boy had a look of sadness in on his face, and Jake felt inexplicable anger flare in his chest. He clenched his fist and hoped no-one noticed it. They didn't, apparently more interested in the fact that the two missing teens were joining them.

"What the hell are you guys doing up here?" Alex asked. "You're supposed to be downstairs watching our parents!"

"No need, man." Chase said, flipping his head dismissively. "Molly's pop is still down, Gert's rents are still out cold and stone cold, and I haven't seen Molly's mom, but I don't think-" He stopped, as everyone in the room (Molly included) gestured down at the floor, where the still form of Mrs. Hayes still lay.

"Oh." Chase said simply. "Never mind. Anyway, the only other adult that was here was K's mom, and we took care of her earlier."

"Huh?" Jake and Alex said simultaneously. Chase grinned.

"Yeah, it was awesome! We were like, totally surveying the house, and then Mrs. Dean comes out of nowhere and traps me in this light-cage thing! Then she and K have this whole talk about alien stuff, and K starts crying-"

"I did not!" Karolina cried indignantly. Chase continued undauntedly.

"-and then she puts her bracelet on her hand and totally slugs her mom! She drops her like a bag of rocks!" He laughed as he finished.

"Impressive..." Hannah said, rubbing her holographic chin. "I was wondering what those optical energy bursts were."

"Yeah, that would be us." Karolina looked down at her feet and rubbed her right fist. Jake guessed it was sore from the punch. He found himself remembering the feeling of brass knuckles and the pain they'd caused him when he punched someone.

"So all our parents are down for the count?" Nico asked. Alex scratched his head, then nodded.

"Looks like it. Now let's get out of here before-"

_Incoming!_ Hannah bellowed in Jake's mind.

What? He asked, confused, hesitating.

His body reacted without either.

He dropped to his knees, grabbing and replacing his helmet and pulling Molly from his leg at the same time. He covered Molly's body with his. She yelled in shock, but didn't try to escape. Which may have saved her life.

Behind Jake, the entire wall of Molly's room exploded, showering all inside with a mass of debris. Several large chunks bounced off Jake's armor with dull _thunks_. A good-sized one nailed him directly in the back and shattered. The blast knocked most of his friends off their feet, but they didn't seem severely hurt.

The moment the maelstrom of wood had subsided, Jake tossed Molly behind him and turned to face the menace that had assaulted them.

It took him a moment to realize it was Karolina's mom, dressed in the wet-suit like garment that served as her and her husband's Pride uniform, illuminated by the brilliant rays of the recently-risen sun. Mrs. Dean was floating outside the recently-opened hole in the wall, and her skin was glowing, same as how her daughter's had. But it seemed more...controlled. The light didn't spin off like ribbons from her. It simply coursed over her skin and through her hair. She looked down at the huddled teens with what Jake guessed was contempt (he couldn't read her expression too well through the light).

"I _should _say I would have killed you when I had the chance," She said coldly, "But that would be both cliche and inaccurate." She floated lower, coming to about even hight with Jake and his friends. To his right, Jake saw Molly scurry under the bed.

"After all," Mrs. Dean continued. "A chance was something you brats never truly had."

She looked over the group, face filled with what might have been sarcastic glee. Jake ignored it, and focused instead on slowly, methodically reaching out for his M7S, which had been blown across the room by the blast that opened the wall.

"Go away, mom." Karolina growled, rising to her knees and fingering her bracelet. Gert joined her, glaring back at Mrs. Dean with as much contempt as she was receiving.

"Oh, I'd say we have a chance." She muttered. "Come closer, and we'll show you just how-"

"Oh shut up, you fat human reject." Mrs. Dean spat. She clenched her hands, and brilliant bands of rainbow light, like the one Karolina had shot Mr. Minoru with but on a much larger level, encircled Gert, who cried out in surprise.

"Now, none of you move." Mrs. Dean ordered. "Do anything, and I'll pop Gertrude like one of her own pimples." She paused, glancing over the group. Jake kept reaching for his SMG. Mrs. Dean continued to talk, practically doing a monologue on how she didn't want to kill anyone in the group yet would kill Gert if any of the group tried anything, as she was considered "expendable".

Jake simply kept inching for his gun.

He'd almost had his hand on it when a noise made him pause.

It came from under the bed. Jake turned to see Molly crawl out from under the bed and look up at Mrs. Dean, fists clenched.

"Stop it!" She howled. She stood up from the ground, and Jake noticed the glow in her eyes and hair increased again. "Your hurting her!"

What happened next, not even Hannah could have predicted. Mrs. Dean glanced down at Molly, but didn't have time to react before Molly, with a strangely chilling cry of "Just be nice!", ran at her and shoved her hard in the stomach.

Jake wasn't sure what he'd been expecting, but it certainly hadn't been for Mrs. Dean to grunt like she'd been hit by a fully-armored Spartan-II and go soaring out the hole she'd made into Molly's pool, where she hit with a splash that lifted water and bubbles several yards in the air.

For a moment, the group was silent. They simply stared at Molly, who sat down heavily on the remains of her bed.

"Holy shit!" Chase cried. "Did you see how strong she was?"  
"Yeah," Gert muttered breathlessly. She reached up and patted Molly's shoulder. "Thanks, Mol."

"Sure..." The girl muttered. She slumped towards the bed.

Is she- Jake started to ask, but Hannah jumped in with the answer before he could ask.

_She's fine. From what I'm getting in these readings here, she's just tired. A burst of strength like that must require quite a bit of energy...which she doesn't have._

Big surprise, Jake thought sarcastically. She'll be fine, though. Right?

_Yes. She'll sleep for a while, then probably wake up hungry. _

Good.

Jake turned his attention back to the group. Molly crawled weakly to him, and he hauled her onto his shoulder like he'd done to Chase hours earlier. She muttered something that sounded like either "love" or "dove", and simply passed out. Seconds later, she started snoring.

"Lets go." Alex said, picking himself up off the floor. "We need to get moving before the rest of our 'rents wake up."

"Wait, we can't leave yet!" Karolina called out. "My mom's at the bottom of the pool! She'll drown!"

"The let her." Chase said, stretching and rubbing his arm where part of the wall had hit him. "She's a murderer."

"Nah, drowning's too good for her." Gert muttered. "She deserves something worse. More painful and long."

"Actually, drowning's not fun." Hannah added quickly. "Though if you want pain, we could always throw a canister of purified cesium in there..."

"I don't care about any of this!" Karolina cried. "She's still my mom! I don't want her to die!"

As Jake was thinking the two sides over, something struck him.

"Wait, didn't we go to Karolina's place to look for a ring?" He asked. Alex nodded.

"Yeah, but we never found it. Why?"

"I saw a ring on Mrs. Dean's finger..." Jake trailed off. There wasn't any need to say more. Nico sighed.

"I'll get her. If it means she goes to jail..." She trailed off, then slung the staff she'd acquired over her shoulder and started down the stairs. Alex watched her.

"I'm going with her." He announced. "Everyone else, get to the van. If we aren't back in five minutes..."

"We'll come back for you, and blow the shit out of anyone who tries to mess with us." Jake said. Alex looked shocked, but recovered.

"There's no point in putting the rest of you in danger for us, Jake." He said quietly. "If we don't come back...we probably won't. Ever."

"Then _I'll_ personally come back and curb-stomp Mrs. Dean's wet-dream movie star head myself."

"Just get to the car, Jake." Alex growled. "And don't try anything stupid. That is an order."

With that, Alex turned and left. Jake glanced over at Karolina and Gert, who had witnessed the conversation but not participated. Gert simply shrugged and headed for the car. Jake and Karolina followed behind. As they left, Hannah started talking to Jake.

_Jake, I'm picking up something strange back in Molly's room, _She said. _It looks like an un-encrypted data line running through the wall. I'm going to check it out._

Go right ahead.

_I wasn't asking for permission._

Hannah fell silent. Karolina, fell into step next to Jake.

"Uh, about what you just said...that was all metaphorical, right?" She asked.

Jake looked at her, face neutral.

"What do you think?" He asked. Karolina actually stopped walking for a moment, but caught up again quickly. She looked like she wanted to say something else, but didn't start. So Jake didn't either, and they walked back to the van in silence.

Gert arrived before them, and opened the back. Jake climbed in, and Karolina followed before moving to the front to start the van.

Jake set Molly down on the floor, before reconsidering and pulling a shirt from his backpack. He quickly folded it and placed it under her head. She mumbled something, then opened her eyes slightly.

"Thanks." She whispered.

"No problem. Go back to sleep, you need it."

"Okay." Molly shut her eyes again, and, after muttering "Back off, Keyes, Jake's mine," she fell asleep again. Jake smiled tiredly. His whole body felt weak, and his stomach and head were both aching. Signs that he knew all to well from far to many all-night Halo benders; they all pointed towards lack of sleep.

But he couldn't sleep now. If Nico and Alex needed him, he had to be ready.

They still had time to show up, though.

Jake crossed his arms and legs, leaned back against the van wall, and closed his eyes.

He's just take a quick power nap. After all, that's what all the other Spartan's did...

Downtown Los Angeles  
8:42 A.M.

Jake awoke to the feeling of warm silk sheets on his bare skin and a cool breeze on his face. He opened his eyes slowly, enjoying the warmth and cool. He wasn't in the van; was in a fancy room, make of some kind of sandstone-like rock, with a large window overlooking a brilliant blue body of water. Jake wasn't sure, but he felt like he'd seen it somewhere before. He looked down at himself and was only mildly interested that he was naked.

Something stirred next to him in bed. He glanced over to see the nude back of the red-haired girl from his vision/memory thing he'd experienced with Karolina. He smiled, and rubbed her spine with his hand. She cooed happily, then rolled over to face him, emerald eyes blinking free of sleep.

"Morning, Jake." She whispered.

"Same to you, Mara." He replied. He leaned over and kissed her forehead.

Somewhere, in the back of Jake's mind, ideas began moving, like cogs and gears in a great machine.

Wait, Mara? Surely not...could it be?

He didn't have much time to ponder it, as Mara reached up her hands and wrapped them around his neck. She hoisted herself up, then pressed her face to his chest, rubbing herself on him like a cat. Jake sighed in pleasure. The girl continued, leaning up to kiss and suck on the hollow of his neck.

From somewhere, faintly, a word reached his ears.

_Jake..._

Jake blinked, unsure he'd heard right. Was someone calling him?

_Jake..._

There it was again!

_UNSC to Jake..._

Where the hell was that? Jake thought in frustration. Mara wasn't helping; now, she was biting the skin of his neck, making him twitch.

_WAKE THE FUCK UP, DAMN IT! _Something screamed at him.

Jake's eyes snapped open. Cognition followed moments later. He wasn't in a bed, or anything even close to what he'd been dreaming. He guessed it was a dream.

Currently, he was on the floor of Chase's van, arms wrapped around something. A quick glance down showed it was Molly, who was still unconscious. Jake also noticed he was in his street cloths again.

A sharp pain in his neck helped to wake him up. Jake sat up quickly, sending another jolt of pain through him. He looked down again

Molly, though asleep, was moving. For some reason, she'd snuggled up to him, and was currently doing in real life what the Mara girl had been doing in his dream. As gently as he could, Jake pulled her free of his neck-skin. She didn't even wake up, and promptly stuffed her mouth with her thumb when he set her down.

_Ah, good. You're finally up._ Hannah said happily. It was her that had been shouting. She must have returned to him while he was asleep. Jake glared at the top of the van and rubbed his neck where Molly had bit him.

What do you want? He asked crossly.

_Nothing. Just that we're almost to the police station._

Police station?

_Yes. As it turns out, your guess was correct; the ring you noticed on Mrs. Dean's finger is the one required to decode the Abstract._

Oh, good. Jake sighed. So this whole crazy night is just about over?

_Hopefully. _

Jake groaned and levered himself onto the seats along the sides of the van. He placed his back to the driver's seat (where he noticed Karolina was currently occupying), and stretched out. He scratched the back of his neck, fingers sliding smoothly over his neural implant. He paused, feeling the dimpled metal circle. He found himself remembering something from earlier that night.

Don't we still have that program that we took from my house? Why do we need this "One Ring" or whatever?

_Because we can't access the program, remember? _Hannah's voice took on an exasperated tone. _I'm working on turning it into something that can be read by modern computers, but it's going to take some time._

But of course it's going to take time, Jake thought bitterly. Does Alex know of this?

_He does. And he gave me the go-ahead. He's going to try and translate the Abstract with the ring, while I work on the program._

Just as long as we have a plan, Jake said. He yawned, then reached into his pack and pulled out an energy bar. He munched it thoughtfully.

"Hey, you're finally up." Alex's voice came from the passenger side seat. Jake grunted in response.

"You mean he's alive," Chase added from between the two front seats. "That was a deep sleep, man. We though you were dead for a bit."

"You wish." Jake laughed harshly. He got up and joined Chase. The vista of downtown LA cruised by. As Jake looked, a map appeared before his eyes, brought up by Hannah; a diagram of streets, with a small moving dot representing the van. Jake felt a sudden urge to roll down the windows and blast parental-guidance rated music out the van's speakers.

"Huh, that's weird." Alex muttered to Jake's right. He glanced over to see that the boy had his glasses up on his forehead and was looking at a page of the Abstract through the ring,which he held on it's side. Jake could see that part of it was see-through; he guessed this is what put the weird code of the Abstract into plain english.

"Something wrong?" Karolina asked, glancing over from driving. Alex bit his lip in concentration.

"I'm not sure, but it looks like this ring from Mrs. Dean's only translating every _third_ word in here." He slipped the ring back onto his finger, then look out the window. "Lets just hope there's enough in here to put them away for good."

"You and me both, bro." Chase said, patting Alex's shoulder. "You sure this is the way to the police station, Karolina?"

"Pretty sure," the blond replied. "I've been there before. My parents and I got arrested for being in this peace rally thing." She swallowed hard before continuing. "I still can't believe that was all an...an act. And I fell for it."

"Don't beat yourself up, gorgeous." Chase said, in what he probably though was a comforting voice. "It's not your fault. We were all fooled."

"Not to mention your parents _are_ actors." Jake added in. "I don't think it would be to hard to take the skills required for the screen and apply them to real life."

"I guess..." Karolina whispered. Silence fell on the group as they each contemplated the events of the night. A rustling came from behind Jake, who turned. Molly had finally woken up, and was rubbing her eyes. She looked slightly confused.

"Welcome back to the land of the living, Molly." Nico said, speaking for the first time since Jake woke up. The younger girl blinked, looked around, and quickly scooted over to Jake, promptly wrapping herself around his leg again.

"Where are we?" She asked. Jake glanced out the window again.

"Downtown LA. A couple dozen kilometers from the Pacific, if I'm gauging distance correctly.

"The what?" Asked Molly. Jake realized that, being in fourth grade, Molly probably didn't remember the names of the worlds oceans.

"The beach." He simplified.

"Oh." Molly said simply. She stiffened. "Wait, why are we going to the beach? I have to get to school!"

"It's cool." Nico said from across the van. Jake saw her stretch her hands out and heard the loud _crack_ it caused. "We're just going on a little...field trip."

"But my parents didn't sign anything!" Molly cried. "How can I go on a field trip if they didn't sign a permission slip?"

"You're parents aren't going to be signing anything again, Molly. The sooner you get that, the better." Gert said, reaching over and patting the girl's shoulder. Molly responded by pulling herself closer into Jake's leg and burying most of her face in the fabric. Jake grit his teeth.

Why the hell does she keep doing this? He wondered to Hannah. What am I to her, her personal hiding spot?

_She trusts you, Jake. _His AI replied. _You're like the bigger brother she never had. That, and I think it helps she knows you're a Spartan. I don't know about you, but if I was in her situation, I'd hang onto your leg too. _

Okay, as much as that makes sense, why am _I _her older brother? I thought Chase had that distinction.

_Apparently, he did, until recently. _

Oh? Do tell.

_You remember that unsecured data line I found? Well, one of the things on there was an electronic version of Molly's diary._

She keeps a diary? I didn't know that.

_That's kind of the point. You don't want people reading your diary. Also, don't tell her I was reading it, would you?_

Sure. Can do.

_Anyway, she has several entries devoted to you. You remember a couple months ago she got sick?_

I do.

Jake thought back to that day. It had been raining, and he and his Live-buddy Grey280 had been tea-bagging noobs on Halo 2 left, right and center with their mad Battle Rifle and dual-wielded Needler skills (respectively), when he'd received a call from the two Doctor Hayes's. They were needed somewhere (which Jake not realized probably had something to do with this Pride of theirs), and they were wondering if he would look after Molly, who apparently had come down with a cold, for a couple hours for fifteen bucks. Jake took the job without hesitation, for both the money and the chance to go to Molly's house. Which he'd only been to once.

Unfortunately for his latter plan, Molly's parents had brought her to his place. But there was still the chance of fifteen dollars, so Jake still took Molly in.

There really wasn't much to watching Molly, he found out. The cold wasn't that bad in the first place, so all Jake was required to do was give her a dose of medicine at certain times, and get her fresh tissues, and change the TV station or DVD she was watching, and once make her a bowl of chicken-noodle soup. All things that didn't require much, and he spent quite a bit of the time she was there working with Grey to perfect a move they called the "One-Two Sucker Punch", where one of them would get the target's attention and the other would sneak up behind and assassinate them. All in all, it had been a good job.

Back in the present, Jake furrowed his brow. He'd been nice to her when she was sick, but he couldn't think of anything that would make Molly latch onto his leg every time she got scared.

_It's not so much what you did, as what the other's didn't. _Hannah explained. _Molly's parents tried both Alex and Chase before you, and both were busy. You weren't, so they took her over to you._

So what does that have to do with me being her "big brother?"

_The way I see it? That "cold" was Molly's body starting the transition to what we saw earlier. That means her brain was...well, for lack of a better word, cooked. From what I'm reading here, she took the fact that Alex and Chase couldn't keep an eye on her meant she didn't mean anything to them. You could, so she believed you cared. So her subconscious, screwed up as it was, must have taken you as her bigger brother. _

Okay, that makes sense, kind of.

_Don't think to much about it,_ Hannah warned. _We're about to have bigger problems._

What do you mean?

_When Alex's phone rings in a couple seconds, you'll find out. _

True to his AI's word, Alex's cell phone beeped. Jake didn't recognize the ring tone, but it sounded sinister.

"Oh no." Alex muttered, pulling the device from his pocket. "That's my father's ring tone."

He took a deep breath, then turned the phone on.

Unlike the last time their parents had contacted them, Jake could only hear one side of the conversation (Alex's). What he did hear was enough to make him glad that he couldn't hear the rest.

Alex argued with his dad for a while, then paused and reached down to turn on the radio. He tuned it to a news station.

What came out of the speakers made Jake's insides clench like that time he'd faced that Hunter pair on Legendary with only a magnum and plasma pistol to use.

"Local police are still on the look out for sixteen-year old Alex Wilder, wanted in connection with yesterday's murder." The radio announcer reported.

"What!" Alex shouted in shock. He looked down at the radio as if it had grown fangs. Jake knew how he felt.

"Guys, look!" Karolina called, pointing out the window. Jake crawled in between the seats to get a better look. The blond was pointing at an electronics store they were passing. Apparently, the news report was being broadcast simultaneously across both radio and television, as the many different TV's in the shops window were showing pictures in time to what the reporter was saying.

"Seventeen-year old Destiny Gonzales was found dead in Wilder's bedroom last night," Continued the reporter. The TV's showed a picture of a girl, one that Jake recognized (despite the healthier complexion and non-dyed hair) as the girl that Mr. Wilder had stabbed at the meeting.

So they're telling half the truth, he thought. A Wilder did stab her...just not Alex. Had the situation been different, he would have laughed. The voice of doom from the radio continued onward.

"Police suspect the slaying may have been inspired by the boy's involvement in violent online role-playing games, know more commonly as MMORPG's."

"So your using the girl you killed to frame us," Alex said to his dad. "Impressive. The part about the RPG's was very nice as well."

Alex's dad started to reply, but Jake tuned it out, focusing instead on the continuing report.

Seconds later, it spelled his own, personal doom.

"In addition, it has been reported that they are also searching for at least one other local teen, Jacob "Jake" Hunter, one of Alex's friends, in connection to the slaying. When asked if they had any proof that Jacob had been involved, Lieutenant Flores of the LAPD replied that the crime scene was covered with markings and symbols related to the video game "Halo", of which Jake is reported to be an avid player. According to the Lieutenant, it seems that the killing may have been a sacrifice of sorts, as some of the writing on the walls suggests the boys may have been attempting to trade the girl's life in exchange for better luck in their gaming. Authorities are also reportedly looking for several other teens, the identities of which are currently unknown, who may have also been involved."

"Now what the heck is going on?" Molly asked from below Jake. The boy looked down to see the green-eyed girl had released his leg and hand pulled herself up to join her.

"Stuff." Jake replied simply.

"Stuff?" Molly probed. Jake shrugged.

"Ask me when I'm done listening to this," He said. Molly nodded, then squirmed under his armpit to see out the window.

"Additionally," The radio reported went on, "the Amber Alert system has been activated for eleven-year old Molly Hayes, who was allegedly kidnapped by the gang just hours ago."

The TV changed to show a picture of Molly, on her knees in her favorite red pom-pom hat and a green jacket that matched her eyes (picked out by Mrs. Dean, Jake remembered), making a cute face at the camera.

The real Molly noticed this as well.

"Hey, I'm on TV!" She cried, clapping her hands in excitement. Her face fell as she looked closer at the picture. "Oh man! Why did they have to use that one?"

Jake simply shrugged. The news report moved on to things not related to the group in the van, and Jake quickly turned the radio off. Alex and his dad continued to argue, until Alex ended the conversation with a final-sounding _click._

Silence filled the van as Alex sat back and let out a breath.

"Well, that didn't sound good." Nico said, a tad unnecessarily.

"It's not." Alex said. His voice sounded tired. This confused Jake. How bad could the news be?

"Our parents...they control everything. The entire city. Media, cops, crime...it's all in their pocket." He took a deep breath before continuing. "We're fugitives from the whole city, probably the world."

"Oh, well that's just great." Nico replied. "What the hell do we do now?"

"The only thing we can do," Chase said. Jake noticed he was grinning. "Fall of the face of the earth."

Chase got up and gave a list of directions to Karolina, who turned off the main road and followed them. Jake realized they were headed for Griffith Park.

"Guess Chase got his wish to show us his 'sweet hiding spot'" He grumbled. Karolina, who's seat he was leaning against, made an "Ehn" noise and shrugged.

"He did focus on it a lot last night," She said. "And my mom said one of the first rules of the Law of Manifestation-"

"The _what_?"

"It's supposedly the secret to how all these people got power and money and fame. As far as they told me, you focus on something hard enough, and it will come to you."

"Sounds like a bunch of crap to me." Replied Jake. Karolina grunted.

"Maybe, but it fits here."

"True." Jake yawned. "Now, unless anyone else has anything important to say, I'm going back to sleep.

The group around him said things along the lines of "Go right ahead."

So Jake did.

Bronson Canyon  
Griffith Park  
10:27 A.M.

As he had hoped, Jake had another strange dream; unfortunately, it wasn't related to the last one. It was, however, similar.

This time, he woke up on a couch, covered by a thick blanket. His whole body felt sore, like he'd recently fought something. As if to prove this statement, when he reached up with his hand to rub his eyes, he saw it was covered in bandages and Band-Aids and strips of medical tape. His arm was similarly adorned.

He rose, or tried to; his chest felt like it was on fire, and when he looked down he could see it was bare and wrapped in blood-stained felt bandages. He guessed from those and the fact that he was having trouble breathing told him he must have broken a rib earlier, maybe two. He groaned, but managed to move to a sitting position.

"Oh, your up already," A female voice called from his right. Jake turned his head (eliciting lines of fire up his back), focusing on the girl who had spoke. From the fact that his eyes kept unfocusing, he guessed he'd taken at least one hit to the head as well.

Finally, he could see her clearly; like Mara, she was red-haired with green eyes, but this girl was younger, probably between thirteen and sixteen. She wore what looked like a private girls school uniform, which was covered in large patches of what was most likely his blood. She had her hair in pig-tails, one of which she was currently playing with. The area around her eyes were red; she'd been crying recently.

"Yeah, I'm up." Jake said, with a grunt. He tried to stand, but found he couldn't. His legs felt like they were filled with lead, and the rest of him felt weak. He lay back down.

"Here." The girl walked over to his side and handed him something. Jake took it; an open thermos, filled with something warm and obviously protein-rich, judging by the smell.

"Chicken soup." The girl said. Jake thought he heard an edge of apology in her voice. "It's the best thing I could think of."

"Thanks, Jenny." Jake replied, putting the thermos to his lips. He drained the soup in a couple of gulps, then handed the empty container back to the girl. "It's fine."

"Good." Jenny blushed, then sat down on the coffee-style table sitting in front of the couch. "How are you feeling?"

"Better." It wasn't a lie; Jake actually felt better than he remembered feeling earlier. What had happened escaped him, but he knew it had something to do with running, and dynamite, and a...furnace, right? He'd had to run to get the dynamite to the furnace?

"Well, I'm glad to hear that." Jenny continued, patting Jake's knee. "DJ and I were worried you weren't going to make it there for a bit. After you ran into the house with those sticks...We thought you were lunch meat, to be honest." She gave him a weak smile. Jake snorted in response.

"It's going to take more than a possessed house to stop Jake Hunter." He said, laughing at the end. He stopped quickly; each laugh sent pain through his chest.

"DJ's going to be sad to hear that." Jenny smiled darkly.

"Eh?" Jake said, raising his eyebrow. Jenny shrugged.

"He thinks you're trying to steal me." She laughed, darkly. "Just doesn't seem to get that one kiss brought on by fear of death doesn't mean we're a couple."

"Heh," Jake snorted. "Well, if he wants to prevent me from stealing you, he should fight harder."

"No point," Jenny replied, voice dropping. She stood up and kneeled by Jake's side. "You've already stolen me."

Gently, she kissed him. When she pulled back, Jake felt warmth fill his limbs.

"Sucks to be him..." He muttered. Sudden darkness filled his head. His eyes closed, and he passed out.

Seconds later, he snapped his eyes open. He was back in the van. After a quick check to make sure his dream hadn't been partially influenced by Molly again (a thought at which he shuddered), he sat up and rubbed his eyes.

Now who the hell was that girl? He asked himself.

_Penny Bennet._ Hannah informed him.

Wait, the hell do you know what I was talking about? Jake started. A sudden, disturbing thought reached his still-waking mind.

Were _spying_ on my dream?

_First, no. That would just be wrong. And mean. And secondly, I wouldn't need to; that wasn't a dream. _

Then what the hell-

_A memory. _

A memory. You joking me, right? I would think I would remember if I'd been kissed by a hot redhead.

_You wouldn't if you had a neural implant designed to prevent you from knowing any of your true past until you were eighteen. _

Is _that_ what's going on? I'm seeing events from my real past?

_Basically. _

Okay, that makes almost no sense.

_We can discuss it later. We've stopped. _

So we have.

Jake stood, grabbed his pistol from it's resting place next to him, and opened the back of the van. He held the door open for Nico, Gert, her dinosaur, Molly and Chase, then closed it. Karolina and Alex joined them from the front of the van. The group assembled on the drivers side.

Jake took a look around; the area they had driven into was obviously far off the beaten path, with lots of rocks and trees and grass that hadn't been touched in year. There really wasn't much of anything of interest, except for the large cave opening before them. Even that was dull-looking, except for the sign planted next to it.

Jake's pulse jumped when he read it.

**DANGER**, it read. **GAMMA TESTING SITE. LETHAL LEVELS OF RADIATION!**

Oh shit! Jake thought, and took a step back, not sure of what to do.

_The sign's a fake, Jake. _Hannah said, laughing. _And even if it was real, I'm not getting any radiation readings, except for the standard background level. In fact... _Hannah fell silent, working on something._ Thought so. _

Though so what?

_I've tapped into the Internet. From what I'm reading here, that sign was put for sale on Ebay by a local prop company worker. It was made for some movie that fell through. _

And how did it get here?

_Chase bought it. _

Weird.

_Agreed._

While Hannah and Jake had been discussing the sign, the rest of the group had been observing the cave. They were not impressed.

"So, wait, the "amazing hiding place" you've been cramming down our throats since last night is a _cave_?" Alex said in disbelief.

"Yep." Chase said proudly. "Nice, isn't she?"

"Looks like the Batcave form that old Batman show." Nico noted.

"Holy stupid ideas, Batman." Gert joined in.

"Nah, that's down by Franklin." Chase crossed his arms...or tried to. He still had the Fistigons on, and had a little trouble fitting them into his elbows. "This is way off the beaten path; ain't no one come around here but me."

"No surprise, check out the sign!" Karolina said, pointing to the fake radiation warning.

"It's a fake." Jake, Hannah and Chase said, all at the same time. The three exchanged a glance, before Chase motioned for Hannah to continue.

"The sign was built for a movie that never got made." She explained. "The maker put it up on Ebay to get it out of his house."

"And when I found this place, I bought it and put it up to keep hobos and stoners and the like out." Chase added. "Ain't no one get to squat in my haunt 'cept me."

"I like it." Molly finally spoke up. She looked around and nodded. "It looks...cool. I've always wanted to live in a cave."

She scratched her chest and adjusted her shirt. Jake noticed it seemed to be catching on something higher up on her chest.

_Interesting..._ Hannah muttered. _I wonder if Molly's mutant genetics are causing her body to go through an accelerated puberty. _

You mean she's already starting to get boobs, Jake said.

_That's a fitting enough._

You're just sick. And just so you know, she had those yesterday.

_Know who's the sick one?_

"It get's better." Chase called to the group, breaking Jake and Hannah out of the brewing argument. He bent down and crawled into the cave. The rest of the group followed. Darkness quickly closed on them.

Through it, Jake could barely see Chase, standing over by a section of the wall. He saluted them, kneeled down, and then simply vanished.

Well, that wasn't quite the right word. As Jake got closer, he felt a breeze blowing on his face; there was a hole in the wall. Chase had simply crawled through it. One by one, the rest of the group followed.  
Darkness pressed in on them. Unable to see anything, The group was forced to navigate by their hands alone.

"Man, I can't see anything." Molly's voice broke through the gloom. "This is even worse than those tunnel things back at Alex's."

"I'm really starting wish I'd brought a flashlight..." Nico added.

"Affirmative." Jake agreed. He moved forward again, but this time his hand touched something soft as opposed to rock.

"Hey, watch it!" Nico called back.

"Shit, sorry!" Jake withdrew his hand and kept crawling. Ahead, he could see a section of light. Or more accurately, a section of darkness that wasn't so dark. He felt above him, felt no top, and stood up. The rest of his friends followed him out.

"Where are we?" Gert wondered. "Does anyone here have something that produces light?

Light...Jake blinked. Of course!

He moved over to the closest black shape, which he thought was Karolina. He grabbed her wrist, only to realize there wasn't a bracelet there.

"Hey, who's hand was that?" Molly call out indignantly.

"Mine," Jake admitted. "I'm looking for Karolina."

"Oh, right, my bracelet!"

There was a rustle of cloth, followed by a brilliant blast of light. Jake didn't look away in time, and got a nasty flash to his eyes. When the spot had stopped dancing before Jake's eyes, he looked around the cave.

The moment he did, he realized that "cave" was _seriously _not the right term.

As opposed to the expected rock, the inside of the cave was filled filled with the remains of a house. A very nice one, if the statues and wreck pillars were any indication. Around him, the rest of the group was just as surprised as them.

"Welcome, friends," Chase said, with a dramatic inflection, "To the Hostel."

"'Hostile" is the word, alright." Alex noted, looking up at the ceiling. It was a mad mish-mash of plaster, marble and natural cave rock. "Looks like it was built by M.C. Escher after a three-day basing, booze and boobs bender."

"Yeah, it didn't used to look like this." Chase said, walking down the stairs Jake realized his group was standing on. "A couple years ago, I swiped this crazy book from my old man that told of this "missing mansion" in this area. From what I read in there, this place was built up-top by some crazy actor from the 20's. Built it on unsafe ground, and it got sucked down during an earthquake."

"So you're saying that this whole place is on unstable ground." Nico noted, looking up at the ceiling. "I was going to say it didn't seem very stable."

"We'll be fine. I've been doing all sorts of crazy shit in here since I found it." Chase assured her. "Had half the lacrosse team cheerleaders down here a couple months ago..." The boy grinned evilly.

"I concur," Hannah added her voice to the question. "The ground above us _is _unstable, but the rock around us is...well, rock solid." She burst to life on Jake's shoulder, looking around the room. "Not even the Locust Horde could dig through it. The only way in or out is through that tunnel."

"Well, that's good to know." Nico continued to explore. A growl came from behind her. Jake turned to see it was Gert's dinosaur.

"Easy, Old Lace." The girl soothed her animal. Jake blinked. Had she just called the dinosaur _Old Lace_? What the hell did that mean?

"Old Lace?" Karolina questioned from her position above the rest of the group. Gert looked up at the glowing girl.

"Yeah. I gave her a new name. One to match my own." She turned back to the group. "As of now, I'd prefer if you called me Arsenic."

Realization hit Jake like a brick.

Arsenic and Old Lace! That was the name of that boring-ass play that he'd had to help the school drama department do! Of course, once they'd given him the originality editing job, it looked totally different, but still...

"What the hell kind of codenames are Arsenic and Old Lace?" Chase scoffed. "I thought you were smart. You could come up with a better set than that."

"First, watch a movie made before '85." Gert snapped back. "Second, who said it's a codename? That _is my _name now. Gertrude Yorkes is dead. Long live Arsenic."

"Okay, that's even weirder." Nico added. "Any reason you want to drop your name?"

"They gave it to me." Gert (no, Arsenic, Jake reminded himself) said.

Silence fell on the group. The revelation Arsenic had given the group made sense.

"That is such a cool idea!" Molly shouted, standing up from the section of floor she'd been inspecting. "I'm in! I wanna be..." She paused, and seemed to simply stop, lost in thought.

"Well, from now on you can call me...Lucy in the Sky." Karolina said, with only a slight quaver in her voice.

"Uh...I use "Sister Grimm" as my instant messenger tag," Nico muttered, bitting her lip. "That'll work, I guess."

"And I...Am Neo." Chase said, striking what he believed to be a heroic pose.

"Hey, you can't use that!" Karolina (There is no way, Jake told himself, that I am ever going to call her Lucy in the Sky) called down to Chase. The boy shrugged.

"Why not? It's cool, and if fits!"

"Originality might be a good idea." Jake said, finally joining the conversation. Chase glared at him.

"Oh, then lets hear what you have." He taunted. Jake nodded, then started racking his brain.

_Sierra might be fitting. _Hannah suggested.

No, no one would get it...

Jake kept thinking. What made him stand out...

Wait, what had Grey and his clan unofficially nicknamed him?

_Hardpoint. _That was it. Cause, just like the hardpoint on a jet fighter, he could use whatever weapon he was given.

"My callsign's Hardpoint." He said coldly.

"Well fine." Chase grumbled.

"Heh, he's got such a mouth we should call him Talkback." Arsenic suggested. Molly laughed, and the rest of the group hid grins.

"Oh laugh it up...Bruiser." Chase said, making the last word into a sneer. Molly dropped her head in disappointment.

"Man, I wanted to be Princess Powerful..." She muttered.

"We'll work on it." Jake said.

_You should start thinking of yourself as Hardpoint pretty soon._ Hannah added from his mind.

Yeah, right. I'll call myself that in life, but there ain't no way in hell I'm actually going to change my name.

The group turned to Alex.

"So, oh Fearless Leader," Arsenic asked. "What's your new name?"

"Wilder." The boy replied, looking down at his feet. "My name is Alex Wilder."

"But that's your name already!" Molly cried.

"I know. I don't want to change it." Alex continued.

"But our parents-"

"May have ruined our names, but that doesn't mean we should toss them like a lunch bag." Alex paced away from the group, and turned back to look at them. "I want to redeem it."

"Okay, and you're going to do this how?" Jake wondered. Alex focused on him.

"We have these powers and resources at our fingertips," He replied. "Let's use them to bring our parents to justice."

"Okay, that's insane, bro." Talkback lived up to his name minutes after he'd received it. "You have any idea how long that would take?"

"That's fair." Alex replied moderately. "Till then, we can atone for what they've done. Heal those they hurt, rebuild what they destroy, cleanse what they corrupt. We'll protect the world they're trying to destroy.

_Hold up..._ Hannah said to Jake. _Who ever said anything about them wanting to destroy the world?_

Not me. I didn't hear anything about total world destruction.

_I'm going to look into this. I'm intrigued now. _

Please do.

"And we'll do this how?" Karolina questioned. "At least half of us are wanted criminals, you and Jake by name. We can't do anything without alerting the police and our parents."

"Dude, you think we're on America's Most Wanted yet?" Talkback wondered.

"Well, we aren't going to sit here and do nothing till we die." Alex said firmly. "We'll...wear disguises or something like that."

"So you want to fight back against our parents...by playing superhero?" Said Arsenic. "Isn't that kinda...childish?"

"And what you're doing isn't 'Arsenic'?" Alex made Arsenic's name sound like a derogatory term. "Besides, what's the other option?"

"Grow up?" Bruiser piped up.

"Yes...and become our parents." Alex's eyes grew hard. "I don't know about you, but if that means becoming the people who raised us..."

He paused, then turned and faced with the rest of the group, back towards the side of cave-room-Hostel that Jake was in.

"...I hope I die before I get old." Alex finished.

Nothing happened for a moment. Then the group, as one, agreed.

"Sounds like a plan to me, man." Talkback said. "Now, if you don't mind, I'm gonna sleep." Without further hesitation, he strode off into some section of the groups new home. This seemed to spark something in the group, and they broke off to explore. Alex and Nico went the opposite direction of Chase, Arsenic and Old Lace went back out the entrance tunnel ("to get our stuff", the girl informed them), and Karolina floated up towards the remains of the ceiling, humming and obviously enjoying the chance to fly again.

Jake sat down on the stairs and shook his head, trying to process all the stuff that had happened over the last...he did the math. Almost thirteen and a half hours had passed since he and his friends had witnessed the Pride's ritual.

That, he said to Hannah, was one hell of a night.

_That it was. _Jake felt the AI's attention drift off somewhere else, and he decided to lay back and relax. The floor below him vibrated with footsteps. He turned to see Bruiser climbing the stair towards him.

"Hi, Jake." She said. Jake nodded.

"Sup Bruiser. And I think you should start calling me Hardpoint now."

"Yeah, I think I'm good." The girl replied. She looked around, then lowered her voice "And, between you and me, I would still like to be Molly."

"I don't see any problem with that." Jake shrugged. Molly beamed, then lay down besides him. Karolina soared over him, pulling herself into a loop.

Something uncoiled in Jake's mind.

"Hey, Bruiser, could you leave me and Lucy in the Sky here alone for a minute?"

"She's fine, Hardpoint." Karolina said, floating down to his step. "I can guess what you want. She already knows."

"Know what?" Jake pressed.

"The other thing I tried before...well, you know."

"Yeah, that's what I wanted to know."

"Well...it was Bruiser, here."

"Huh?" Jake felt confusion sweep through him. Thankfully, Molly remembered the thing they were talking of and jumped in.

"Karol-Oops, sorry. _Lucy in the Sky _was babysitting me, and while we were watching this movie we got onto the subject of kissing." Molly shrugged. "She really got into it, and I guessed she wanted to try it. So I kissed her."

"Okay then..." Jake said, suddenly feeling uncomfortable. Molly looked at him quizzically.

"What? My mom kisses me, my dad kisses me, my grandparents do it too...Why not one of my bestest friends?"

"Hey, I got the answer I wanted." Jake replied, holding up his hands. "I'm happy."

"Cool." Molly got up, then walked off deeper into the building. Jake watched her go. As he turned back to Karolina, he felt exhaustion begin to tug at his mind.

"I'm gonna go crash." He told the glowing girl. "I need some time to figure out what the hell happened today."

"I call Hardpoint sleeps in my room!" Molly called from deeper in the building. Jake found himself chuckling.

"You and me both." Karolina settled down onto the floor. She put her hand on his shoulder. "If you want to talk about anything, come see me, okay?"

"Sure." Jake shrugged Karolina's hand off, and she moved off, taking most of the light in the room with her.

After she left, Jake sat quietly, alone, for a couple minutes. Tried to get his thoughts in order. Found he couldn't. So, he followed all of his friends deeper into the Hostel, hoping to find a bed, and, just maybe, get another look at some of his former life.

Yep, he thought to himself again. That was one fucking hell of a night.

End of Issue 8, End of Arc: Pride and Joy

Next: Teenage Wasteland

**A/N: Well damn. Finally finished the first arc. Took...what, a couple years? Jeez. I can barely remember when I started this. **

**But despite that, this is certainly not the end of the Remix. I have ever intention of continuing. So to those of you who have kept reading this story, even during the many long breaks in it, your patients will be rewarded. Hopefully, the next arc won't take as long to write.**

**Also; A possible cameo appearance for the person who can guess the two universes Jake's dreams took place in. Just leave it in the reviews. **

**Well, see you guys in Teenage Wasteland!**

**Cmd. Gen. Marasco, Over and Out. **


End file.
